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" 

ESSAY 

ON THE 

MYSTERIES OF ELEUSIS 

BY 

M. OUVAROFF, 

COUNSELLOR OF STATE TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE 

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA ; 

CURATOR OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF 

SAINT PETERSBURG; 

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 

AND OF THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS IN THAT CITY; 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF 

GOTTINGEN, &C. 



Homer. Hymn, in Cer. v. 485. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, 

By J. D. PRICE. 



By J. CHRISTIE. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR RODWELL AND MARTIN, 

SUCCESSORS TO MR. FAULDER, 

NEW-BOND-STREET. 
1817. 



£T5 



5" 



PRINTED BY S. HAMILTON, 
WEYBRIDGE, SURREY. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



OF M. Ouvaroff's " Essai sur les 
Mysteres d'Eleusis," the third edition ap- 
peared in June, 1816, at Paris, and has 
been used by the English translator ; be- 
cause some slight errors in the former edi- 
tions are here corrected by M. De Sacy, 
who, in a short advertisement, informs us, 
that, conjointly with M. Boissonade, cele- 
brated for his erudition in Greek literature, 
he had revised the proof sheets, and added 
two or three notes. We learn also, with 
pleasure, from this advertisement, that 
M. de Sacy, in compliance with the request 
of his deceased friend M. de Sainte Croix, 
was preparing to publish a second edition of 
the admirable " Recherches sur les Mysteres 
du Paganisme f occasionally quoted in M. 
Ouvaroff's Essay. 



PREFACE 



TO THE 



FIRST EDITION, 

PUBLISHED IN 1812. 



The honour of being associated, in 1811, 
to the Royal Society of Gottingen, inspired 
me with the design of writing on certain points 
of antiquity, which had long engaged my at- 
tention. There is, without doubt, some teme- 
rity in thus choosing a difficult subject, which, 
perhaps, has been supposed exhausted, and 
which a person can now scarcely discuss with- 
out endeavouring, as the celebrated Heyne has 
observed, to establish some favourite hypo- 
thesis. My object in this work is to show, 
that not only were the ancient mysteries the 
very life of polytheism ; but still more, that 
they proceeded from the sole and true source 



VI 



of all the light diffused over the globe. If 
these conjectures should serve as materials to- 
wards a history of polytheism, if they prove 
the necessity of giving a new incitement to 
the study of antiquities, I shall have attained 
my object. 

Men of letters have generally chosen for 
the discussion of such subjects, one common 
language ; and the Latin was for a long time 
the interpreter of antiquity. But since it has 
lost the ancient privilege of universality, the 
French has appropriated a great portion of its 
rights : the justness and clearness which cha- 
racterise it, seem, in fact, to qualify this lan- 
guage for becoming the habitual idiom of a 
science in which a perspicuous arrangement 
of ideas, and propriety of expression, are al- 
most as necessary as a spirit of analysis and of 
criticism. These considerations have influenced 
me : but I feel the necessity of indulgence for 
having undertaken to write in a foreign lan- 
guage: one which presents, above all others, 
so many difficulties to strangers employing it. 

These are not the only obstacles that op- 



Vll 

posed me. It is well known that, notwith- 
standing the researches of Meursius, of War- 
burton, Bougainville, Meiners, Stark, Bach, 
Vogel, and Tiedemann ; that notwithstanding 
the learned work of M. de Sainte Croix, the 
great question respecting the Mysteries is still 
far from being solved. Original testimonies 
are very few : and they have not hitherto been 
classed with the precaution indispensable to- 
wards tracing the historical date, and in de- 
termining the intrinsic value of each authority. 
This confusion, which Meiners has already 
noticed, contributes to darken a subject, emi- 
nently obscure in itself. I only mention these 
difficulties as an excuse for not having ap- 
proached more near to my object. 

I now gladly pay a tribute of acknowledge- 
ment to the Privy Counsellor Olenin, who 
kindly superintended for me the execution of 
those vignettes which ornament this Essay, 
To the State Counsellor Kcehler, I am indebt- 
ed for the gem represented in the title page *. 

* An explanation of the engravings will be found im- 
mediately after the Notes, which follow this Essay. 



Vlll 

The Greek verse which I have chosen as a 
motto, has been adopted by Wolf, and re- 
jected by Hermann, two great authorities of 
equal weight* 

Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites. 

Besides, I am not here discussing the merits 
or authenticity of this passage from the Hymn 
to Ceres ; but merely its direct relation with 
the subject of my work. 

I shall add but one reflection : the study of 
antiquities is not an isolated study ; whenever 
it raises itself above the dead letter, this noble 
science becomes the history of the human 
mind. Not only does it adapt itself to all 
ages, and all situations of life, but it opens so 
wide a field, that thought willingly fixes on it, 
and is for a moment abstracted from the cares 
and disasters attending great political and mo- 
ral commotions. Seneca*, has admirably de- 
scribed the destination of a man of letters 
during such stormy epochs, and thus con- 

* Seneca, de Otio Sap. 31. 



IX 

eludes : " Duas respublicas animo contempla- 
mur : alteram magnam et vere publicam, qua dii 
atque homines continentur ; in qua non ad hunc 
angulum respicimus, aut ad ilium, sed terminos 
civitatis nostrce cum sole metimur ; alteram, cut 

nos adscripsit conditio nascendi Quidam eo- 

dem tempore utrique reipublicce dant operam, 
majori minorique ; quidam tantum minori, qui- 
dam tantum majori. Huic majori reipublicce, et 
in otio deservire possumus ; immo vero nescio an 
in otio melius" 



PREFACE 



TO THE 



SECOND EDITION. 



Of this Essay, the first edition, which did 
not extend beyond one hundred copies, ap- 
peared early in the year 1812; at a moment 
when the general attention was absorbed by 
events of great public interest ; for on them 
depended the fate of Europe. At an epoch 
so unfavourable to literature, it seemed pro- 
bable that a work of this nature, composed in 
a region bordering on the pole, would have 
continued long almost unknown. 

Some copies, however, found their way 
into distant countries, and I had the satisfac- 
tion of learning from different journals the 
opinions of many distinguished scholars re- 
specting it. This encouraged me to retouch 



XI 



my work ; and I resolved to collect all that 
could extend and enrich it, without swelling it 
beyond the limits originally prescribed. 

An epoch has at length arrived favourable 
to the publication of a new edition : after 
twenty years of misfortunes and of faults, Eu- 
rope has been liberated. The republic of let- 
ters will speedily emerge from amidst ruins, 
and flourish once more, in place of the most 
odious tyranny that ever existed. She will re- 
sume, undoubtedly, her ancient rights, of which 
the most precious is that fraternity of senti- 
ments attracting towards one central point 
such a multiplicity of men scattered on the 
surface of the globe. 

I have not neglected any thing that could 
improve this work. The quotations have been 
carefully revised ; the style corrected in seve- 
ral places ; and some important additions made 
throughout the course of these pages. Two 
new sections are annexed ; the fifth, in which 
the system of Euhemerus, and its relation with 
the doctrine of the Mysteries, are examined ; 
and the sixth, of which the object is to recon- 



Xll 

cile the secret worship of Ceres with that of 
Bacchus. The manner in which I have treat- 
ed this question seems to me perfectly new j 
and whatever the learned world may pro- 
nounce concerning it, I must bear alone the 
whole responsibility. 

I have frequently been reproached for the 
adoption, with too ready faith, of the expla- 
nation given by Wilford, of some sacred Eleu- 
sinian words. I am perfectly aware of the 
distrust inspired by the discoveries of this in- 
genious but bold writer ; and far from regard- 
ing his explanation as a basis indispensably 
necessary to my hypothesis, I would have 
abandoned it to the incredulity of European 
readers, if I had found, against Wilford's con- 
jecture, either critical arguments or gramma- 
tical observations of any weight. No one has 
opposed this conjecture with the arms of criti- 
cism ; and in philology suspicions avail but 
little. I thought also, that English men of 
letters in general, and the Society of Calcutta 
in particular, would not have allowed a mani- 
fest imposture to subsist so long; and that 



Xlll 



Wilford, who so frankly and publicly acknow- 
ledged the cheat by which his Pandits had 
deceived him, would himself have hastened to 
disavow this remarkable explanation, if he had 
any reason to doubt its proofs. On this sub- 
ject I have consulted my illustrious friend, Sir 
Gore Ouseley, ambassador extraordinary and 
plenipotentiary from the King of England to 
the court of Persia, and member of the Asia- 
tic Society ; one to whom a long residence in 
India and Persia has rendered familiar all the 
treasures of the human mind. His judgment 
has confirmed me in the opinion, that an affi- 
nity more than accidental existed between the 
Sanscrit words quoted by Wilford and the sa- 
cred terms of Eleusis. With the assistance of 
Sir Gore Ouseley, I have offered some illustra- 
tive remarks on the words Konx and Pax, in 
a note placed at the end of this work. As to 
the monosyllable Om, or rather Oum, every 
testimony conspires to prove it the most abs- 
tract and most mystical of Indian symbols. 

I am, however, willing to renounce any 
advantage that might arise from this explana- 



XIV 



tion, without any fear of thereby weakening 
the basis of my hypothesis, respecting the 
Mysteries of Eleusis : an hypothesis, which 
rests, in all cases, less upon the exact know- 
ledge of what was taught at the Mysteries, 
than upon the certainty of that which was not 
taught. If we can only succeed in ascertain- 
ing satisfactorily the high destination of the 
Mysteries, their religious and historical im- 
portance, and the source from which they is- 
sued, we may leave their Indian extraction a 
doubtful point, and content ourselves with 
having marked the direct relations between the 
first glimmerings of the ancient mystagogy, 
traced back to its true origin, and the last 
systems of Grecian philosophy. M. Chardon 
de la Rochette, whose literary career death 
has lately terminated, informs us in his valuable 
Miscellany *, that M. Silvestre de Sacy had 
undertaken a new edition of M. de Sainte 
Croix's Researches on the Mysteries. Every 
friend of literature must anxiously wish to see 
this work freed from the interpolations of an 

* M61ang. de Critiq. et de Philol. t. iii. p. 44. 



XV 

editor *, who at once abused the confidence of 
friendship and the rights of an immense share 
of erudition. M. Silvestre de Sacy, will better 
fulfil the intentions of M. de Sainte Croix — he 
will erect to the memory of his learned friend 
a literary monument worthy of the one and of 
the other. 

Arcades ambo, 
Et cantare pares, et respondere parati. 



Saint-Petersburg, 
January, 1815. OUVAROFF. 



* M. de Villoison. See the Melanges of M. Chardon 
de la Rochette, t. iii. p. 35. M. Dacier, in his Eloge on 
M. de Sainte Croix, Moniteur, 1811, No. 188, and the 
Mercure of May 18, 1805, p. 414?. 




ESSAY 



ON THE 



€ltminim Myxttxitx* 



SECTION I. 

The study of antiquity offers nothing 
more interesting nor more obscure than 
the mysteries in use among the ancients. 
This subject has long exercised the saga- 
city of various critics, and the ingenuity of 
many learned men. It is, in fact, evident, 



2 ELEUSINIAN [.SECT. I. 

that a profound knowledge, not of the 
ceremonies, but of the source and spirit 
of the mysteries, considered as the true 
depository of religious ideas as they ex- 
isted among the ancients, would cast a 
light altogether new upon antiquity. From 
Meursius to St e Croix and Meiners, 
numerous men of letters have examined 
the question under different aspects; some 
endeavouring to ascertain the origin and 
design of the mysteries ; others to fix the 
epoch of their introduction into Greece, 
and to collect jail the testimonies which 
the ancients have left respecting the cere- 
monies practised during their celebration. 
We must allow that learned researches 
have already been made ; all that could 
illustrate the subject, whether in the writ- 
ings of ancient authors or in the monu- 
ments of art, has been brought together 
and examined with considerable attention; 
yet the most important of these researches, 
that of the religious and philosophical re- 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 3 

lations subsisting between the mysteries 
and polytheism, does not appear to have 
been hitherto made with all the care of 
which it is susceptible. By various writers 
it has been totally neglected ; many have 
only treated of it incidentally ; some have 
regarded the mysteries as ceremonies 
merely designed to deceive the vulgar; 
others have exalted them into schools of 
philosophy. Pluche transformed them 
into a course of salutary influences*, and 
Larcher believed that they inculcated 
atheism -f-. 

To embrace the Avhole extent of this 
question, that tends to make known all 
the elements of the ancient moral world, 
a variety of materials which we now want, 
and which we never shall possess, would 

* Histoire du Ciel, torn. i. p. 371. 

-j- Herodotus, in the translation of Larcher, 1. viii, 
sect. 65. But in the second edition of his work, M. Lar- 
cher declares, that the perusal of M. de St e Croix's Essay, 
(entitled " Recherches sur les Mysteres du Pagan isme,") 
had induced him to abandon this opinion. 

B 2 



4 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. I. 

be absolutely necessary. We do not, 
therefore, flatter ourselves on having illus- 
trated the subject ; but offer the ideas con- 
tained in this Essay as simple conjectures, 
proceeding rather from a desire of instruct- 
ing ourselves, than from any presumptuous 
notion of being able to instruct others. 

Before we proceed further, it will be 
expedient to determine the idea generally 
formed of the mysteries. Under this name 
has been comprehended a multiplicity of 
religious institutions, very different one 
from another, and not derived from any 
common origin. Thus among the number 
of mysteries we find reckoned the ceremo- 
nies of the Dactyli, of the Curetes, the 
Cory ban tes, the Telchines, &c. and the 
more modern initiations of Mithras and of 
Isis. A serious study of this branch of 
antiquity seems, however, to prove, that 
there was scarcely any relation between 
these religious sects and the mysteries of 
Ceres celebrated at Eleusis. Even the 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 5 

analogy which subsisted between the 
mysteries of the Dii Cabiri in Samothrace 
and those of Eleusis has not been deter- 
mined \ 

Amidst all the institutions which have 
been denominated mysteries, those of 
Eleusis hold the highest rank, equally 
imposing from their origin and their re- 
sults : they alone appear in relation with 
the primitive source of religious ideas; 
they alone formed the mysticism of poly- 
theism. Never did the ancients by the 
name of mysteries understand any other 
than the Eleusinian. The rest, with a 
few exceptions, were nothing more origi- 
nally than the mysterious practices of 
barbarian jugglers, the object of whose 
mission was accomplished in the decep- 
tion of a credulous people at that time in 
a half savage state ; and afterwards they 
were the tricks of expert mountebanks, 
who believed it in their power, by the 
help of obscure and foreign ceremonies, 



6 ELEUSINIAN [SECT, t. 

to save from falling a religion which moul- 
dered away on every side. It has also 
been usual to class among the institu- 
tions called mysteries, those of Bacchus, 
which, though very interesting to deve- 
lope, throw but little light on the question 
now before us. The Bacchic or Orphic 
mysteries bear a character wholly opposite 
to the Eleusinian. For it may be affirmed, 
that between the worship of Bacchus and 
that of Ceres, the same difference existed 
as between the unbridled force of savage 
life, and the civilization of well regulated 
society 2 . But the mysteries of Ceres 
are principally distinguished from all 
others, as having been the depositories of 
certain traditions coeval with the world. 
Besides, in discovering a point of media- 
tion between man and the Divinity, those of 
Eleusis had alone attained the object of 
every great religious association. All 
Greece hastened to be initiated ; and 
Plato, who had penetrated into the secrets 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 7 

of the sanctuary, did not speak of them 
without admiration. c The knowledge of 
nature/ says St. Clemens of Alexandria, 
6 is taught in the great mysteries */ If it 
were possible to lift the veil which covers 
the mysteries of Eleusis, we should pos- 
sess a key to the mysteries of Egypt and 
of the East ; a clue, which, having once 
been found, would lead on to the last 
moments of polytheism. 

The time when the mysteries of Eleusis 
were founded is equally uncertain as the 
name of their founder. Tertullian attri- 
butes them to M usaeus -j-. St Epiphany 
to Cadmus and InachusJ; while Clemens 
of Alexandria informs us, that the myste- 
ries were traced to an Egyptian named 
Melampus|. Some (as the scholiast of 
Sophocles) declare that one Eumolpus was 

* Stromat. v. cap. 11. p. 689. 

f Apologet. cap. 21. 

$ Adv. Haer. i. § 9. torn. i. ed. Petav. 

§ Coh. ad Gentes, p. 12. 



8 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. I. 

the founder and first Hierophant of the 
mysteries*; and others believe that Or- 
pheus introduced them from Egypt into 
Greece. The writers however most worthy 
of credit ascribe to Ceres herself the foun- 
dation of the Eleusinian mysteries 3 . 
We shall not here repeat the different fa- 
bles that have been told concerning the 
manner in which Ceres established these 
mysteries. By attributing them to the 
goddess or to Earth, the epoch of their 
foundation was removed beyond the 
bounds of history, and the impossibility 
of ascertaining it was acknowledged. 

An uncertainty still more great hangs 
over the year of their institution ; those 
who have discussed this subject offering 
various opinions, all equally deficient in 
proofs and even in the appearance of pro- 
bability. Meiners and Dupuis have al- 
ready shown that this research is no less 
frivolous than useless 4 . In support of 

* Ad CEdip. Col. v. 1108. 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 9 

the assertion here made, we shall observe, 
that the lesser mysteries having undoubt- 
edly preceded the great, the epoch of their 
true developement should be that of the 
organization of the Grecian republics. It 
is, therefore, infinitely more interesting to 
study the mysteries in their maturity than 
in their infancy*. We may remark also, 
that however remote the date of their 
transmigration from Egypt, however sym- 
bolical the name of Ceres, the mysteries 
must have been anterior to the epoch 
which has been assigned for their founda- 
tion, if we consent to place the germ of 
them in the festivals and popular practices 
of those who first inhabited Greece, and 
who, like them, had issued from the East^f-. 
The religion of the Greeks was not formed 
without successive acquisitions ; and of 
their worship and of their ceremonies 
much had been transmitted to them by 

* Meiners, Verm. Phil. Schrift. iii. p. 258. 

f Meiners, Verm, Phil. Schrift. iii. p. 248—251. 



10 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. I. 

the Egyptians*. The mysteries of Ceres, 
according to Lactantius, very strongly re- 
semble those of Isis-f-. The Attic Ceres 
is the same as the Egyptian Ms}* who, 
in the time of Herodotus, was the only 
divinity in Egypt honoured by the cele- 
bration of mysteries. From these, there- 
fore, we may partly derive the mysteries 
of Ceres§: but this depository of ideas 
can have developed itself but slowly ; and 
it was late in assuming those mystic forms 
which always announce a certain maturity 
of thought. In this we clearly see the 
ordinary progress of the human mind, 
that departs from the idea of infinitude, 
and ranges through an immense space ere 
it resumes its station before this same 
idea, which seems to embrace the two ex- 
tremities of its career. 

* Herodot. 1. ii. cap. 49. 
-j- Lactant. de Falsa Relig. p. 119, {21. 
J Herodot. 1. ii. cap. 59. 

§ Meiners, Comment. Soc. Reg. Getting, torn. xvi. 
p. 234, et seqq. 



SECT. l] MYSTERIES. 11 

This consideration may serve also to 
throw some light on a difficulty much 
more considerable, and which presents it- 
self on the first view. 

We may consider it as an indisputable 
circumstance, that the poems of Homer 
are the most ancient documents of Gre- 
cian history 5 ; but neither are the mys- 
teries once mentioned in them, nor does 
Homer any where indicate a vestige of 
mystic ideas 6 . He never even rises to 
that abstract notion of destiny which con- 
stituted the soul of Grecian tragedy. His 
theology is anterior to all metaphysical 
combinations. Every thing in Homer 
bears the true character of primitive poe- 
try, the musical harmony of words, the 
charm of first impressions. Never has 
there been offered to the human mind a 
more enchanting picture of its youth. We 
discover throughout, in the simplicity of 
Homeric ideas, the germ of a dormant 
power; as we anticipate, while content 



12 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. I. 

plating infantine grace, the vigorous pro- 
portions of maturity. 

These qualities, which at all times 
have rendered Homer so dear to enlight- 
ened nations, present an historic difficulty, 
almost inexplicable, to him who discusses 
the subject of ancient mysteries. We 
have noticed how much uncertainty per- 
vades those of Eleusis. The most au- 
thentic testimonies agree in referring the 
epoch of their foundation even to the 
remote fabulous ages : yet by Homer, the 
first historian of the Greeks, they are not 
any where mentioned ; nay, his work be- 
speaks an order of ideas wholly opposite. 
It would be vain to suppose that taste in 
his time was so delicate, and the rules of 
composition so well determined, that the 
poet might have purposely banished from 
the Epopea every metaphysical idea or 
allusion. And this supposition appears so 
much the more frivolous, as a line of 
demarcation drawn about the Epopea is 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 13 

neither in the genius of Homer, nor of 
the period in which he flourished. What- 
ever idea may have been attached in that 
age to the Epopea, Homer did not ser- 
vilely restrain himself within the bounda- 
ries of one kind. He embraces his own 
time; he embraces nature. 

A representation of the ancient myste- 
ries may not have belonged to his subject. 
Still we could not fail to discover in his 
works some traces of metaphysical ideas, 
if such had existed in his time. One evi- 
dence of great weight, (and which equally 
proves that the mysteries of Greece, by 
whomsoever founded, or at whatever 
epoch, are truly posterior to the age of 
Homer,) is afforded by Herodotus, who 
declares that Homer and Hesiod first gave 
to the Greeks their Theogonies, and that 
these poets were the first who determined 
the names, the worship, and the images 
of the gods *. This assertion must not, 

* Herodot. 1. ii. cap. 53. 



14 ELEUSINIAX [SECT. I, 

however, be taken literally. It is manifest 
that, in the actions assigned by Homer to 
the gods, a system already known is pre- 
supposed. But Homer and Hesiod have 
regulated and combined a multiplicity of 
scattered traditions, of isolated myths 
(fAvOot) ; and in this respect have exercised 
the functions ascribed to them by Hero- 
dotus in that remarkable passage to which 
a reference has been made above, and of 
which the authority has been warmly dis- 
puted, especially by those writers who 
have endeavoured to demonstrate the ex- 
istence of Orpheus, and to prove him the 
founder of the mysteries. It is certain 
that Orpheus in a considerable degree in- 
fluenced the religious ideas of the Greeks ; 
and this circumstance we must allow 
would not be the less true, even were wc 
to adopt the opinion of Aristotle, who, as 
Cicero informs us, maintained that Or- 
pheus never existed f. i For if the name 

* Cic de Nat, Deor. i. cap. 38. 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 15 

of Orpheus be only a collective denomi- 
nation of all those who founded or re- 
formed the mysteries, the actions ascribed 
to him, (such as the foundation of the 
Samothracian or the Bacchic mysteries*,) 
are nevertheless real and historic facts. 
Orpheus was in other respects but little 
known in antiquity. The most ingenious 
critics have protested against the frag- 
ments transmitted under his name 7 . 
But between the mysteries of Samothrace 
attributed to him, and some Egyptian 
ceremonies, such conformity appears as 
serves to confirm the general opinion re- 
specting a journey made by Orpheus into 
Eg}'pt. From the earliest times the 
Egyptians exercised almost a monopoly 
of eastern ideas ; to reconcile therefore the 
transmigration of the Egyptian mysteries 
with the silence of Homer and of Hesiod, 
it is necessary to place the epoch of the 
developement of those rites imported from 

* Diod. 1. i. cap. 96— Apollod. i. cap. 38. 



16 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. T. 

the East, after the age of Homer, or at 
least of the Trojan war; for this event 
had happened before Greece, from the 
midst of civil dissensions, began to orga- 
nise herself into regular governments. 
The heroic age offers still that political 
uncertainty which nature places between 
the nomadic or erratic life and the rigor- 
ous division of casts ; an uncertainty 
whereby the dignity and energy of man 
are unfolded, but by which he is not in- 
spired with the necessity of re-entering 
within himself. 

It appears then, that we may date the 
true increase or growth of the mysteries 
at that period when the principal repub- 
lics of Greece were founded. 

The republican a?ra had succeeded to 
the heroic age at the same time that lyric 
and dramatic poetry replaced the Epopea ; 
and since among the ancients all the ele- 
ments of the moral and physical existence 
of nations were intimately connected, He- 



SECT. I.] MYSTERIES. 17 

siod may be considered as intermediate 
between these two grand epochs. Reli- 
gious notions had already advanced in a 
manner more analogous to the deportment 
of society ; and as it is impossible to be- 
lieve that Grecian poetry could without 
gradual improvement have attained Ho- 
meric perfection, so it can scarcely be 
proved that the mysteries acquired all 
their extent in a spontaneous and arbi- 
trary manner, at a time when nothing in- 
dicates such a necessity. Transplanted 
institutions cannot flourish, unless identi- 
fied by a considerable lapse of time with 
the soil which received them ; and before 
we adopt the opinions of chronologers, 
who undertake to ascertain the date of a 
great event in antiquity ; let us consult the 
philosopher, who calculates whether this 
event be in accordance with the immuta- 
ble laws of nature, which men can neither 
modify nor destroy. 



38 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. II. 



SECTION IL 



It is probable that, of all the Euro- 
pean countries, Greece was the first peo- 
pled by Asiatic colonies. Its whole history 
proves, that at various periods it was in- 
habited by three different races. The first 
colonists, not forming a national body, are 
not designated under a generical name. 
The second colony was Pelasgian, less 
strangers to civilization. The Pelasgians 
seem to have had an affinity with the 
Thracians of Europe and the Phrygians 
of Asia : yet it was implied by the tradi- 
tion of Dodona, that they had a long 
time sacrificed to the gods, although igno- 
rant of their names *. 

* Herod. 1. ii. cap. 52. 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 19 

A great change was produced by the 
deluge of Deucalion, which happened 
about the year 1514 before Christ. A 
new race appeared ; the Hellenes, having 
issued from Asia, spread themselves over 
Greece, drove out the Pelasgians or form- 
ed alliances with them, and bestowed 
their name on the country which they ci- 
vilized ft. About sixty years after Deuca- 
lion's deluge, the Phoenician Cadmus es- 
tablished himself at Thebes, and the 
Egyptian Danaiis at Argos. 

Such is the summary of facts, half 
fabulous half historical, which are col- 
lected with some difficulty in the works 
of ancient writers, and which have given 
rise to a multiplicity of different systems. 
But, in the midst of contradictory hypo- 
theses, it remains indisputable that Greece 
was peopled by Asiatic colonies, more or 
less civilized, and at different epochs. 

Of the Eleusinian mysteries, we have 

* Mem. de PAcad. des Inscrip. torn, xxiii. p. 115, &c. 

C 2 



§0 eLeusinian [sect. II, 

seen that the foundation was attributed 
either to the goddess herself or to foreign 
colonists, and that the Egyptian priests 
claimed the honour of having transmitted 
to the Greeks the first elements of poly- 
theism. These positive facts would suffi- 
ciently prove, even without the conformity 
-of ideas, that the mysteries transplanted 
into Greece, and there united with a cer- 
tain number of local notions, never lost 
the character of their origin derived from 
the cradle of the moral and religious ideas 
of the universe. 

All those separate facts, all those scat- 
tered testimonies, recur to that fruitful 
principle which places in the East the 
centre of science and of civilization. It is 
not in our power to trace uninterruptedly 
their progress, from the first revelations of 
the Divinity to the most mysterious aber- 
rations of human reason ; but it is possi- 
ble to ascertain, by the analogy of ideas 
rather than, by that of words, some prin- 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 21 

cipal epochs, leaving to reflection the task 
of filling up the intervals. The history of 
philosophical should always be connected 
with that of religious ideas ; for philoso- 
phy, left to itself, could only illustrate half 
of the history of the human mind. 

The ancient mysteries, in relation with 
truths of a superior order, bear likewise 
many luminous characters which we un- 
dertake to expose. It is now generally 
acknowledged, that subjects so important 
should be discussed with particular atten- 
tion. Philological researches will not suf- 
fice : we must combine a criticism of ideas 
with a criticism of words, and proceed by 
the light of some important discoveries. 

An hypothesis adopted by many writ- 
ers of the eighteenth century, represents 
Egypt as the parent of all religions, and 
the source of all human knowledge. This 
opinion is not new ; the Egyptians them- 
selves were the first who established it*. 

* Diod. i. c. 29. The same author (speaking of the 



22 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. II. 

Among the numerous supporters of it in 
modern times, it will be sufficient to name 
two late historians of the mysteries, M. de 
St e Croix and M. Dupuis. But some 
others, such as Kaempfer, Huet, La Croze, 
and Brucker, have even regarded India as 
an Egyptian colony. If this system were 
not at variance with our religious tradi- 
tions, it would still contradict the most 
authentic notions of history and philo- 
sophy \ Under many points of view, 
Egypt offers itself as an object unparal- 
leled in the annals of the world ; but no- 
thing appears that marks it as a central 
country, neither its geographical position, 
the natural character of its inhabitants, its 
political destinies, nor the progress of its 
government; nothing appears to demon- 
strate why it should be the source of hu- 
man culture. Some local applications, 
some national symbols, cannot disprove 

Egyptians) says in another place fiXoti^otsgov rfizg dXrfii- 
yu!T£§ov (afc yk y.oi (paiysTCu)— (i. p. 17.) 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 23 

the Asiatic origin of the Egyptian reli- 
gion ; whilst all the plan of this theocracy 
serves to show the priests as a foreign 
colony, zealous in preserving the charge 
which they had brought with them, and 
ingenious in discovering all the proper 
means for fascinating the eye and bend- 
ing the neck of the vulgar 2 . When a 
multitude of symbols absorbs the funda- 
mental ideas, when an impenetrable lan- 
guage eternises that darkness which covers 
the religious system, the thread of alle- 
gory breaks in the hands of the theocrats, 
uncertainty increases, the yoke becomes 
heavier, and we are bewildered in a la- 
byrinth of exterior practices, of which the 
clue has long since been lost. 

But if Egypt invented not any thing, 
it preserved all. Even the severity of its 
government and its high antiquity con- 
tributed much to this ; and Egypt may 
justly be regarded as the true link which 
united Asia to Europe. 



24 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. II. 

Egypt transmitted to the Greeks the 
eastern traditions, after having altered 
them. In the religious ideas of Greece, 
all that differs from the Egyptian theology 
serves precisely to characterise the two 
nations. Traditions of a gloom}' and me- 
lancholy aspect in Egypt, adapted them- 
selves to the smiling climate and lively 
imagination of the Greeks. 

If ancient Egypt were better known, 
if we possessed more exact notions of its 
religious worship and historical traditions, 
the mysteries might easily be traced to 
their source ; but unfortunately a pro- 
found obscurity still hangs over the lan- 
guage, the history, and the monuments of 
Egypt. Some successful attempts (espe- 
cially the great enterprises of the French 
government,) give us reason to expect new 
and important information. The English, 
by their labours in Bengal, have already 
ascertained, in a very authentic manner, 
various facts relative to the union and the 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 25 

points of relation which subsisted between 
ancient India and Egypt. By what we 
have learned of their mythological, histo- 
rical, and geographical traditions, a con- 
formity is so well attested, that we may 
venture to adopt it with confidence 3 . 

The ancients, who considered the In- 
dians as Autochthones* thought, accord- 
ing to Philostratus and Lucian, that the 
Egyptians had borrowed their civilization 
from the Indians -j-. "I know," says Pau- 
sanias, " that the Chaldeans and the magi 
of the Indians are the first who pro- 
nounced the soul to be immortal ; from 
them the Greeks learned their doctrine, 
and above all Plato the son of Aristo J." 
These notions respecting India were pre- 
served during a long time. St. Clement of 

* Diod. ii. cap. 38. TtuvtoL (jejvjj) hxstv vitpi^siv avto- 
yhwcL. Konn. Dionys. 1. xxxiv. v. 182. 'IvSxv y^ysyscuv 
[upYjffa.T'o rfdtgiov dXxrjv. 

f Philostr. Vit. Apoll. iii. cap. 6.— vi. cap. 6. Lucian. 
Fugit. 

£ Messen, cap. 32. 



26 ELEUSINIAN [sECT. II. 

Alexandria and St. Jerome make mention 
of Boudha*. It is certain that oriental 
pantheism, which represented the universe 
as an emanation from the primary being, 
penetrated into Egypt and Greece. 

The Indian philosophers explained this 
system by the image of a spider, which 
draws from its own bosom the thread that 
forms its web, sits in the midst of its work, 
communicates movement to it, and at 
pleasure draws back what it had sent 
forth from its body*j\ They compared the 
world to an egg; the Egyptians and 
Greeks adopted this symbol. We shall 
not enter further into this detail, which 
would divert us from our subject, but 
shall observe, that the recent discoveries 
perfectly agree with the testimonies of the 
ancients. It is proved that India was ac- 
quainted with Misr and the Nile; that 
the Egyptian trinity composed of Osiris, 

* Stromat. i. p. 305. — Hieron. Adv. Jov. i. 

f Mem. de TAcad. des Inscript. torn. xxxi. p. 234. 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 27 

Horus, and Typhon, has a common origin 
with the Indian trinity, consisting of 
Brahmah, Vishnou, and Mahadeva 4 ; that 
the worship of the Phallus in Egypt, faith- 
fully copied from the lingam of the In- 
dians, was introduced into Greece by 
Melampus*; finally, that the division of 
casts, and the hereditary succession of the 
priesthood, were not of Egyptian inven- 
tion, as Dupuis asserts. Nor is it more 
probable that the fabulous Sesostris car- 
ried into Asia the religion of the Egyp- 
tians -f-, nor that the persecution under 
Cambyses forced the Egyptian priests to 
civilize India J. But Egypt served inter- 
mediately between Asia and Greece, and 
was the principal channel of that intellec- 
tual commerce which subsisted from the 
earliest times between these two regions. 

* Herodot. ii. 49. 

f Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisme, p. 8. — 
Herodot. (Larcher's translation) torn. ii. p. 40J, note 389, 
first edition. 

% Kaempfer Histoire du Japon, 1. i. chap. 2. p. 33. 



28 ELEUSINIAN" [SECT. II. 

The most important however of all the 
new discoveries, and that which has most 
relation to the object of this essay, is con- 
tained in the fifth volume of the Asiatic 
Researches. " At the conclusion of the 
Mysteries of Eleusis the congregation was 
dismissed in these words, Ko'yf, *Q.ffi naf> 
Conx, Om, Pax. These mysterious words 
have been considered hitherto as inexpli- 
cable ; but they are pure Sanscrit, and 
used to this day by the Brahmens at the 
conclusion of religious rites. They are 
thus written in the language of the gods, 
as the Hindus call the language of their 
sacred books, Canscha, 0?n, Pacsha. 

" Canscha, signifies the object of our 
most ardent wishes. 

" 0/?2, is the famous monosyllable used 
both at the beginning and conclusion of a 
prayer, or any religious rite, like amen. 

" Pacsha, exactly answers to the obso- 
lete Latin word vix, it signifies change, 
course, stead, place, turn of work, duty, 



SECT.II.] MYSTERIES. 2<J 

fortune. It is used particularly after 
pouring water in honour of the gods and 
Pitris. It appears also from Hesychius, 

I. " That these words were pronounced 
aloud at the conclusion of every momen- 
tous transaction, religious or civil. 

II. " That when judges, after hearing 
a cause, gave their suffrages by dropping 
pebbles of different colours into a boxj 
the noise made by each pebble was called 
by one of these three words (if not by all 
three) but more probably by the word 
pacsha, as the turn or pacsha of the voting 
judge was over. 

" When lawyers pleaded in a court of 
justice, they were allowed to speak two or 
three hours, according to the importance 
of the cause ; and for this purpose there 
was a clepsydra or water-clock ready, 
w T hich making a certain noise at the end 
of the expired pacsha, mx or turn, this 
noise was called pacsha. This word pacsha 
is pronounced vacsh and vact in the vulgar 



30 ELEUSINIAItf [SECT. II. 

dialects, and from it the obsolete Latin 
word vix is obviously derived." 

This interesting discovery of Mr. Wil- 
ford not only fixes the true origin of the 
mysteries, but shows us the intimate and 
numerous relations which had maintained 
the influence of oriental ideas over the 
civilization of antiquity. It is not neces- 
sary to detail here all the results of the 
explanation given by Wilford : every un- 
prejudiced person will see in the East the 
cradle of religious traditions and of phi- 
losophical modes of discipline.- We are 
still in want of several materials, yet may 
cherish the hope of obtaining them; but 
what light has not already been imparted 
by the researches made within the last 
twenty years; and who is there that would 
not wish to direct the whole attention of 
Europe towards Asiatic literature, the 
source of all our knowledge ! 

It appears then, from what has been 
here noticed, that the religious mysteries 



SECT. II.] MYSTERIES. 31 

of Greece were of foreign origin; that 
Egypt did not give them birth; and fi- 
nally, that we are enabled by a luminous 
and singular fact to discover their true 
country 6 . 



32 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. Ill, 



SECTION III 



The natural state of man is neither 
the savage state nor that of corruption. 
It is a simple state, better and more nearly 
approaching to the Divinity. The savage 
and the corrupt man are equally remote 
from it ; but both serve as irrefragable 
monuments, to attest that fall of man, 
which contains in itself alone the key of 
all his history. Hence that retrograde mo- 
tion of the moral world, in opposition to 
the constantly ascending force of the hu- 
man mind ; hence the present state, in 
which the wisdom of men is only an in- 
tuition, a recollection of the past, and 
in which virtue itself is but a return to- 
wards God. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 33 

It seems that all religions have had a 
glimpse of this great truth, the fall of 
man. It is found in all the theological 
systems of the globe, and serves as the 
base of ancient philosophy. In the my- 
thological traditions, it appears sometimes 
as a principal idea, sometimes as an ac- 
cessory notion. We often discover it un- 
der the symbols of combat, of grief; at 
other times under the image of a slain 
god \ Sometimes it is spiritualized ; and 
philosophy then proclaims the degeneracy 
of the soul, and the necessity of its gra- 
dual return to the place which it had oc- 
cupied*. All moral truths of the first 
order which connect themselves with that 
of the fall of man, those first truths im- 
mediately transmitted or developed by the 
Divinity, could not fail to survive the 
greatest wanderings of the human mind *j-. 

* Plat, in Phaed., in Cratyl. Macrob. Somn. Scip. 
1—9. Clem. Strom, iii. p. 433. 

f Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. torn. xxxv. p. 171 — 
188. 



34 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

The dispersion of nations, the abuse of 
allegory, the personification of the divine 
attributes, that of the powers of nature, 
the confusion of ideas on incorporeal sub- 
stances, all these principles combined, 
whilst by degrees they produced poly- 
theism, could not hinder some fragments 
of the primordial truths from being pre- 
served in the East ; and these by a won- 
derful direction spread themselves afar, 
traversed Egypt, and, however altered, 
became in the centre of the ancient world 
the mysterious doctrine of the Aporrhete, 
and the object of the great mysteries of 
Eleusis. 

To facts so simple supported by his- 
torical traditions, to results so satisfactory 
connected with our sacred traditions, no 
contradiction should be offered. Of all 
hypotheses on the origin of civilization, 
that is indubitably the most solid which 
establishes a common centre, a focus of 
information. To discover the solution of 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 35 

a grand problem in history and philoso- 
phy, without injuring the one or the other, 
is the chief triumph of judicious criticism. 
The union of philosophy with criticism, 
is most particularly necessary in the vast 
field of antiquity, where the most ingeni- 
ous conjecture is rarely successful ; and 
where those who adopt the most reason- 
able hypotheses, still find every instant 
that they must not hope to conquer all 
difficulties by one explanation, nor reduce 
every thing to one system 3 . In the study 
of ancient religions let us be content to 
seize the principal features : these consti- 
tute the character ; the others have been 
added successively, and often at random. 

Guided by this principle, we shall not 
hazard any further conjecture on the trans- 
migration of primitive and fundamental 
ideas. We have noticed their birth in the 
East, and their residence in Egypt : let us 
now proceed to view them established in 
Greece. 

d 2 



36 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

The mysteries of Eleusis were divided, 
like the philosophy of the ancients, into 
two parts ; the one esoteric, the other exo- 
teric; and these two parts were the greater 
and the lesser mysteries. 

It is generally allowed that the lesser 
were the more ancient, and this progres- 
sion is consistent with the nature of things. 
M. de St e Croix, supported by Meursius, 
regards the lesser mysteries as preparatory 
ceremonies *. It is, however, more pro- 
bable that the great and lesser mysteries 
were absolutely distinct. 

Undoubtedly, he who was initiated in 
the great, knew all that the lesser myste- 
ries contained ; but there is nothing to 
prove that ever} 7 Mysta might become an 
Epopt, or, in other words, that those who 
were adepts in the lesser mysteries might 
on that account claim initiation in the 
great. Every Greek, without distinction 
of age or of origin, might be admitted to 

* Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisme, p. 182, &c. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 37 

the lesser mysteries : barbarians, in pro- 
cess of time, enjoyed the same advantage. 
If to obtain admission to the greater mys- 
teries had been a matter of equal facility, 
could they have exercised the same in- 
fluence, would they never have been di- 
vulged 4 ? 

This double doctrine, which raised a 
wall of partition between the philosopher 
and the people, is a distinguishing feature 
of antiquity, inherent in all its institu- 
tions, in all its systems, and in all its ci- 
vilization. Christianity, in destroying the 
double doctrine, became a grand epoch, 
even in the history of philosophy. The 
division of the mysteries into greater and 
lesser, belonged to the very nature of the 
institution : the great mysteries were re- 
served for an inconsiderable number of 
initiated persons, because they contained 
revelations which would have given a mor- 
tal blow to the religion of the state ; the 
lesser mysteries were within the reach of 



38 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

all men. We are induced by every consi- 
deration to believe, that the lesser mysteries 
comprehended symbolical representations 
of the history of Ceres and of Proserpine ; 
still, however, not teaching any thing 
directly contrary to polytheism : the doc- 
trine of a future state, in which the guilty 
should be punished and the good rewarded, 
did not exceed the limits of the predomi- 
nant religion. 

The initiated might even learn that 
some of their gods had been men, whose 
meritorious actions had obtained for them 
the apotheosis*, without any attack on poly- 
theism, whidh having never formed a body 
of doctrine, offered in this respect the 
greatest latitude 5 . It is probable that the 
lesser mysteries formed only a sort of ra- 
tional polytheism. The great alone, the 
rgXsra), possessed man} r sublime truths, and 
some traditional monuments of the first 
order. It is not possible to seize on the 

* Cic. Tusc. l.i. cap. 12. See Section V. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 39 

whole of this mysterious doctrine, the 
ancients having only left us some imper- 
fect fragments, some obscure indications 
and allusions. Modern discoveries con- 
sist in a great number of hypotheses, and 
in very few facts. 

It is not necessary here to mention all 
that relates to the structure of the temple 
of Eleusis, which, according to Strabo*, 
could contain from twenty thousand to 
thirty thousand men 6 ; nor the order of 
the ceremonies, nor the different functions 
of the mystagogues, either in the great or 
the lesser mysteries. On these subjects 
antiquity has left us but little information, 
and this has been already sufficiently ex- 
amined by various accomplished men of 
letters. 

In their writings may be found all that 
it is possible to collect concerning the 
hierophant, (lego<pdvr9ig) 9 the torch-bearer, 
(AotSoy^o?), the sacred herald, (le^o^yf,) 

* Lib.ix. p. 272. ed. Casaub. 1587. 



40 ELEUSIISTIAN [sect. III. 

the attendant at the altar, (© \k) B^f ), and 
the other persons of inferior rank em- 
ployed in the temple, their dresses, their 
functions, the days appointed for proces- 
sions, &c. Several of these notions are 
obscure, others contradictory ; and if they 
serve to give an idea of the exterior solem- 
nities, they do not throw any light on the 
mysteries concealed within the sanctuary. 
We must again acknowledge the im- 
possibility of determining, with precision, 
the notions which the Epopts received ; 
but that connection which we have as- 
certained between the initiations and the 
true source of all our knowledge, suf- 
fices to prove that they not only acquired 
from them just notions respecting the 
Divinity, — the relations between man and 
the Divinity, — the primitive dignity of hu- 
man nature, — its fall, — the immortality of 
the soul, — the means of its return towards 
God, and finally, another order of things 
after death, — but that traditions were im- 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 41 

parted to them, oral and even written, 
precious remains of the great shipwreck of 
humanity. We know as a fact, that the 
hierophant communicated to the Epopts, 
certain sacred books, which none but the 
initiated could read*. And it appears, 
from what Pausanias relates of the Phe- 
neatae, that some writings were preserved 
between stones called petroma, (Tlsrgapa,,) 
and that they were never read but during 
the nighty. Perhaps, they united to these 
historical monuments some notions re- 
specting the general system of the uni- 
verse, some theurgic doctrines, and per- 
haps even some positive discoveries in 
human sciences. The residence of eastern 
traditions in Egypt may have connected 
them with those great discoveries, this 
wisdom of the Egyptians, to which Scrip- 
ture itself bears witness in various places. 

* Galen. ifs§) ?y$ I'm ditXwv <pa§(jt,dxtov hvd^suog. 1. viii. 
init. 

f Arcad. p. 249. (viii. 15. It is also the opinion of Meur- 
sius, Eleus. cap. 10.) 



42 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

It is not in fact probable, that the 
superior initiation was limited to the de- 
monstration of the unity of God, and the 
immortality of the soul, by philosophical 
arguments. Clemens of Alexandria ex- 
pressly says, when speaking of the great 
mysteries, " Here ends all instruction ; we 
behold nature and things*/' Besides, moral 
notions were so widely diffused, that the 
mysteries could not, merely on account of 
them, lay claim to the magnificent eulo- 
giums bestowed by the most enlightened 
personages of antiquity. For if we sup- 
pose that the revelation of those truths 
had been the only object of the mysteries, 
would they not have ceased to exist from 
the moment when those truths were pub- 
licly taught ? Would Pindar, Plato, Cicero, 
Epictetus, have spoken of them with such 
admiration, if the hierophant had satisfied 
himself with loudly proclaiming his own 
opinions, or those of his order, on truths 

* Strom. V. cap. 2. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 43 

with which they were themselves acquaint- 
ed? Whence could the hierophant have 
derived those ideas, of what sources could 
he have availed himself which were not 
equally accessible to philosophy ? Let us 
then conclude, that not only great moral 
truths were revealed to the initiated, but 
likewise traditions both oral and written, 
which ascended to the first ages of the 
world. These remnants, placed in the 
midst of polytheism, constituted the 
essence, and the secret doctrine of the 
mysteries. 

This hypothesis not only reconciles the 
apparent contradictions of the religious 
system of the ancients, but perfectly agrees 
with our sacred traditions 7 . It must be re- 
marked, that the first fathers of the church, 
who furnish such interesting notions on 
the mysteries, alternately mention them 
with much praise, or represent them in 
odious colours. St. Clemens of Alex- 
andria, who was himself supposed to bare 



44 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

been initiated*, at one time ascribes to 
the mysteries an object the most frivolous 
and even shameful -j-, and transforms them 
into schools of atheism Jj but, at another 
time, asserts that the truths taught in the 
mysteries had been stolen by the philoso- 
phers from Moses and the prophets §, for 
according to St. Clemens, the mysteries 
were established by the philosophers ||. 

Tertullian who imputes the invention 
of them to the Devil ^f, Arnobius, Athena- 
goras, and St. Justin, have all spoken 
concerning them nearly in the same man- 
ner. Their praises and their blame may be 
equally well founded, without being equally 
disinterested ; for it is necessary to distin- 
guish epochs. At the time when the fathers 
wrote, it is certain that great abuses had 

* Euseb. Prseparat. Evan. l.ii. cap. 2. p. 61. itavfw 
ph $ta ifei§as Ixflwv dvrfl. 

\ Coh. ad Gentes, p. 14, &c. 

% Ibid. p. 17. 

§ Strom. V. p. 650. 

|| Ibid. p. 681. 

f De Praescrip. Haereticor. cap. 4?0. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 45 

crept into the mysteries, which were be- 
come the support of polytheism. 

And it may be easily supposed, that in 
this respect the fathers, who considered 
them as the sanctuaries of error, endea- 
voured to discredit them by all the means 
in their power. Besides this, the corrup- 
tion of the mysteries had diffused some 
notions of the ceremonies practised at the 
celebration of them, and the symbols had 
been divulged by indiscreet Mystce. Every 
thing conspired to profane the mysteries, 
already fallen from their primitive dignity. 
But before we examine this epoch, let us 
pause a moment at that during which the 
mysteries flourished. Although it was then 
impossible that what the mysteries taught 
should be revealed 8 , we find among the 
ancients some allusions to the great truths 
which they comprehended. Cicero, ad- 
dressing himself to Atticus, thus represents 
them : " Amidst all of excellent or divine 
that your Athens has produced and dif- 



46 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

fused among men, nothing is more excel- 
lent than the mysteries, which exalt us 
from a rude and savage state to true 
humanity. They initiate us into the true 
principles of life*, for they teach us not 
only to live pleasantly, but to die with 
better hopes/' This fine eulogium does 
not require any commentary; we are de- 
lighted to hear it from the lips of a great 
man, educated in the study of philosophy, 
and familiar with every branch of human 
knowledge. Several other passages which 
have been already remarked in the works 
of ancient writers, contain pompous enco- 
miums on the mysteries, and indicate the 
various moral and philosophical truths 
which they inculcated. The ingenious 
Warburton 9 has been more successful in 
proving the importance of the mysteries on 
this account, than in describing the sixth 

* De Leg. ii. 14. Initiaque ut appellantur ita revera 
principia vitse cognovimus. This phrase is not easily trans- 
lated. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 47 

book of Virgil's iEneid, as an exact pic- 
ture of the ceremonies, and even of the 
secret doctrine of the initiations. The 
conformity of a few rites, can only prove, 
at most, that Virgil was acquainted with 
some ceremonies practised in the mysteries: 
besides, his philosophy was the Epicurean*, 
and we know that those who professed it, 
were regarded as hostile to the mysteries *f\ 
It is probable also, that some of his pic- 
tures derived their colouring from the 
perusal of the works of Pythagorean phi- 
losophers. 

Let us here observe, that the Grecian 
philosophers have been in constant opposi- 
tion to the doctrine of the initiations: this 
opposition has been sanctioned by the re- 
fusal of Socrates to participate in the 
mysteries of Eleusis 10 . Some modern 
writers have availed themselves of this 
circumstance to degrade the initiations 

* Servius, ad ^n. VI. v. 376. 

f Plut. T. Non pos6e suav. viv. Sec. Epic. torn. ii. p. 1 103. 



48 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

into simple lustrations, to which, in pro- 
cess of time, a secret doctrine was adapted, 
relating merely to the services rendered by 
legislators, such as agriculture, laws, &c*. 
The opinion of the Grecian philosophers 
on this subject will appear liable to strong 
suspicions, when we recollect that philo- 
sophy in Greece was a true power. Hav- 
ing undertaken the bold task of tearing 
the veil from nature, could philosophy re- 
concile itself to the mystic obscurity which 
the initiations spread over the most impor- 
tant truths? The Grecian philosophy was 
analytical in principle, the most opposite 
opinions tended to the same object; and 
as all the knowledge of the ancients, to be 
admitted into the original system should 
present a local application and acquire a 
degree of life ; the union of philosophy 
and of mysticism became impossible. The 
Greeks, who understood in the highest de- 

* St e Croix, Recherches sur les Mysteres du Pa- 
ganisme, p. 369. 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 49 

gree, the art of rendering science popular, 
did not, like us, confine philosophy within 
the narrow compass of a book, or the limits 
of a closet. They discussed great moral 
questions before a people, who felt a lively 
interest in those debates ; and the rivalship 
of system, did not, besides, allow to leave 
in a respectful half-light, the great theo- 
gonic and cosmogonic problems of which 
the solution was required. This direc- 
tion, not perhaps very suitable to the true 
progress of philosophy, favoured in a 
high degree poetry and eloquence. But 
since the invention of printing has de- 
throned speech, the course of human 
knowledge has been inverted : philosophy 
banished to the silence of the closet, is 
become speculative; it may now acknow- 
ledge the existence of truths which it can- 
not demonstrate. A brilliant and en- 
lightened people does not, any longer, 
oblige it to descend into the arena, nor 
does the general interest any longer follow 
its researches. 

E 



50 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. III. 

Eloquence and poetry, banished also 
from ordinary life, have not been able, like 
philosophy, to profit by this exclusion; 
and in proportion as the mass of our em- 
pirical knowledge increases with time, the 
further we remove ourselves from that age 
when philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, 
exercised in unison their influence on a 
people so happily organised, that they 
rendered divine honours to Beauty; and 
followed Plato in crowds, whilst one verse 
inaccurately or inelegantly pronounced on 
the stage, would offend every ear and excite 
a general commotion in their theatres 11 . 

This digression seemed necessary to- 
wards appreciating the true character of 
ancient philosophy, and its relations with 
the religious mysteries. We may trace the 
refusal of Socrates, rather to his situation 
than to his opinion; and Epaminondas and 
Agesilaus, in refusing to be initiated, may 
have been influenced by some personal 
motives from which no argument can be 
deduced against the mysteries. The sar- 



SECT. III.] MYSTERIES. 51 

casms of Diogenes the Cynic, were pointed 
at those abuses which had crept into the 
lesser mysteries, and perhaps at the ex- 
cessive credulity of a people who allowed 
themselves to be governed by imagination. 
We shall only add respecting Socrates 
that philosophy was not always inflexible; 
the initiations found a zealous apologist in 
Plato ; and this authority is the more con- 
siderable, as Plato indisputably raised him- 
self to a greater height than any preceding 
or subsequent philosopher. 

The ancients have already written on 
the subject of the mysteries. Melanthius 
quoted by Atheneus, and by the Scholiast 
of Aristophanes, Menander, named by the 
same author, and Hicesius, noticed by Cle- 
ment of Alexandria*, published works 
concerning the mysteries. We cannot suf- 
ficiently deplore the loss of those writings; 

* Others might be mentioned. See the preface to 
Meursius's " Eleusinia," and the " Recherches," &c. of 
M. de St 8 Croix, p. 339, 340. 

E 2 



52 ELEUSINIAN (SECT. III. 

although it is probable that they related 
merely to the details of exterior ceremo- 
nies. We can scarcely indeed believe, that 
they discussed the true point in question, 
the object and origin of the greater myste- 
ries, and their relations with polytheism. 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 53 



SECTION IV. 



We find, however, that the mysteries, 
by a fatality attached to human affairs, even 
the most sacred, did not long retain their 
purity. The initiations soon degenerated 
into a vain ceremony; abstinence was al- 
most openly violated ; the governments 
speculated on the piety of the initiated. 
We learn from the testimonies of Xsseus 
and Demosthenes*, that already in their 
time, courtezans had been admitted to ini- 
tiation: and, if we believe what the fathers 
relate, a horrible corruption had seized on 
the sanctuary of Eleusis 1 . It is probable, 
however, that all these excesses occurred 
only among the Mystoe. 

* Is. Orat, de Haered. Philoctem. p. 61 Bemosth. in 

Neser. p. 862. 



54 ELEUSINIAN [sECT. IV. 

Every circumstance induces us to be- 
lieve that the number of epopts was at 
all times very limited ; and, if it increased 
with the decline of the mysteries, it could 
not have been much extended; for we do 
not find that the secrecy of the sanctuary 
w r as violated even at this epoch. In pro- 
portion as corruption was introduced, the 
spirit which animated the institution de- 
creased, and empty forms still subsisted 
long after the moving principle had ceased 
to act. 

The initiations were continued even 
under the Christian emperors. St. Jerome 
says, " Hierophantas quoque Atheniensium 
(legant) usque hodie cicutcE sorbitione cas- 
trare*. Valentinian,whodied in the year of 
Christ, 374, was willing to destroy the mys- 
teries after the reign of Julian ; but, at the 
solicitations of Pretextatus, he relinquished 
this project. This circumstance is related 
as follows, in the fourth book of Zosimus's 

* Adv. Jovin. 1. 1. Extr. 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 55 

History — " Valentinian, desirous of intro- 
ducing new laws, wished to begin by re- 
forming the altars ; he forbade nocturnal 
sacrifices, believing that such a prohibition 
would put an end to the scandalous prac- 
tices. But Pretextatus, who was at that 
time proconsul in Greece, a man endowed 
with every virtue, represented to him that 
the Greeks would consider life as insup- 
portable, were they not permitted to cele- 
brate those most sacred mysteries which 
bind together the human race (ra cvvi^ovru 
to kv&gcofttiov yivog tkytarcira, [/sV(TT7igia,). Valen- 
tinian did not insist on the execution of the 
law which he had decreed ; and all was 
continued according to ancient usage/' — ■ 
It appears that the mysteries were com- 
prehended in the general proscriptions of 
Theodosius the Great, who, as some histo- 
rians inform us, overthrew all the altars of 
polytheism *; 

The mysteries, however, before their fall, 

* Anno Christi, 346—395. 



56 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. IV. 

enjoyed a brilliant though absolutely unex- 
pected epoch, and assumed a new aspect. 
This is, without doubt, one of the most in- 
teresting monuments of their history ; with 
a rapid sketch of it, we shall terminate this 
section. 

The religious mysteries of the Greeks 
formed, as we have seen, the true essence 
of polytheism, without altering its exterior 
forms. On the first view, it would seem 
that moral truths of a superior order, the 
multiplicity of symbolical and popular doc- 
trines, inveterate abuses, and licentious 
practices, could not very well agree. If, 
however, we examine objects closely, we 
shall find that nothing was more compat- 
ible than the knowledge of some primordial 
truths restricted to a chosen few, and the 
ignorance of the multitude; the double doc- 
trine, equally dividing the religion and the 
philosophy of the ancients, formed the base 
of this system, which united all contraries, 
and combined into one solid mass of con- 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 57 

sistency elements the most heterogeneous. 
Besides, we must believe that natural ideas 
on the unity of God and the immortality 
of the soul, were more diffused than is ge- 
nerally supposed ; but the people allowed 
themselves to be seduced by the antiquity 
of the practices of polytheism, and blindly 
followed the road to which they were di- 
rected by the illusions of authority and of 
genius. 

Polytheism, besieged on all sides, endea- 
voured still to defend itself; and, before its 
fall, attempted to combat Christianity with 
its own weapons. As the new religion ad- 
dressed itself at once to all the intellectual 
faculties of man, the adherents of poly- 
theism wished to ennoble their faith by a 
moral dignity which it had never possessed, 
and they gave it a supposititious object al- 
together opposite to its character. For this 
purpose, they collected every thing that 
wore an appearance of mysticism, and then 
formed a whole, which caused polytheism 



58 ELEUSINIA.N [SECT. IV. 

to assume an aspect entirely new : philoso- 
phy entered into the general combination, 
or rather took the lead ; but all these efforts 
were vain, and only served to enhance the 
triumph of the Christian religion. 

Those deceive themselves who discover 
in the history of the eclectism of Alexan- 
dria only a tissue of obscure manoeuvres 
and unconnected doctrines. It was one 
main-spring of a system conceived with 
ability, embraced with ardour, transmitted 
from sect to sect, from generation to gene- 
ration. On the throne of the world, 
Marcus Aurelius was the hero, Julian the 
martyr of this system. In the schools of 
the philosophers, its principal supporters 
were Apollonius TyanBeus 2 , Ammonius 
Saccas 3 , Jamblichus, Celsus 4 , Porphyry, 
Proclus, and above all Plotinus, who made 
so bad a use of his brilliant imagination. 

In the vast plan concerted for opposing 
the progress of Christianity, nothing had 
been neglected which promised success. 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 59 

The eclectics not only wished to re-esta- 
blish the ancient authority of the temple 
of Eleusis, but even introduced mysteries 
unused before that time. Those of Mithras, 
unknown in Greece, appeared at Rome 
under Trajan, about the year 101 of Christ. 
As all those efforts had but one object, 
most of the Christian ceremonies were bor- 
rowed; to these were added the most ter- 
rible trials, and it is even said that blood 
flowed in the cavern of Mithras. Adrian 
forbade human sacrifices^, but Commodus 
was accused of having sacrificed a man-f. 
In these mysteries various symbolical cere- 
monies were represented. A fragment of 
Pallas, preserved by Porphyry J, informs 
us, that these representations chiefly related 
to the various transmigrations of the soul, 
and its abode on earth. The worship of 
Isis had penetrated into Greece, and the 
Egyptian goddess was known there in the 

* Porphyr. de Abstin, 1. 11. §56. 
•j- Lamprid. in Comm. cap. 9. 
% De Abst. 1. iv. § 16. 



60 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. IV. 

time of Pausanias, by her true name*. 
But the Isiac mysteries, which flourished at 
Corinth and at Rome under the emperors, 
were very different from the ancient mys- 
teries of Sais. Apuleius affords the most 
copious details concerning one of those fes- 
tivals which the Romans called Isidis nam- 
giam-f. The Eleusinian mysteries appear 
to have served as a model for those of Isis, 
at least with respect to exterior practices: 
but it was principally the Orphic ceremo- 
nies that received at this time considerable 
extension. The Platonists did not disdain 
to unite with the Orphics ; and this sect 
made great progress in the first ages of 
Christianity. Proclus,in his Commentary on 
the Timaeus, and in his Platonic Theology, 
undertook even to show that the doctrine 
of Plato was the same with that of the Or- 
phics. Still it would be difficult to com- 
bine under one aspect the different desti- 
nations given by the Platonics to the mys- 

* Paus. Phoc. cap. 32. f Apul. Metamorph. xi. 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 6l 

teries of Eleusis, at that time absolutely 
degenerated. It appears that they caused 
the EpoptSe to be regarded as a kind of 
physicomystic theology, and that, like the 
Stoics, they sought rather the nature of 
things than the nature of the gods*. In 
another point of view they also explained 
the EpoptSe by theurgic means, making 
use at one time of that hierarchy of Intelli- 
gences, or genii, subordinate to each other, 
which Plato mentions, and at other times, 
of ideas altogether mystical. A passage of 
Porphyry quoted by Eusebius *f*, will give 
a sufficient idea of the manner in which 
they sometimes explained the symbols — 
" God being a luminous principle, residing 
in the midst of the most subtile fire, he re- 
mains for ever invisible to the eyes of those 
who do not elevate themselves above mate- 
rial life : on this account, the sight of 
transparent bodies, such as crystal, Parian 

* Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. i. cap. 42. 
f Prap. Evang. 1. iii. cap. 7. 



62 ELEUSINIAff [SECT. IV. 

marble, and even ivory, recalls the idea 
of divine light ; as the sight of gold ex- 
cites an idea of its purity, for gold cannot 
be sullied. Some have thought by a black 
stone was signified the invisibility of the di- 
vine essence. To express supreme reason, 
the Divinity was represented under the hu- 
man form — and beautiful, for God is the 
source of beauty ; of different ages, and in 
various attitudes, sitting or upright ; of one 
or the other sex, as a virgin or a young 
man, a husband or a bride, that all the 
shades and gradations might be marked. 
Every thing luminous was subsequently at- 
tributed to the gods; the sphere, and all 
that is spherical, to the universe, to the 
sun and the moon — sometimes to Fortune 
and to Hope. The circle, and all circular 
figures, to eternity — to the celestial move- 
ments, to the circles and zones of the hea- 
vens. The section of circles, to the phases 
of the moon ; and pyramids and obelisks, to 
the igneous principle, and through that to 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 63 

the gods of Heaven. A cone expresses 
the sun; a cylinder the earth; the phallus 
and triangle (a symbol of the matrix), de- 
s ignategenerationV 

Most of these symbols, as we learn from 
St. Clement of Alexandria, belonged to the 
mysteries of Eleusis*. We see that the 
foundation of the doctrine of the Platonists 
was a system of theurgy, in which we must 
not seek philosophic precision. This doc- 
trine, not able to restrain itself within the 
bounds of a regular system, presents, in 
general, a great fluctuation of ideas. We 
must consider all that is found in the writ- 
ings of the principal eclectics concerning 
the ancient mysteries, as individual opinions, 
which may be varied and interpreted with- 
out end, but which tend incessantly to the 
same object. Let this suffice for our pre- 
sent purpose. A detailed history of 
polytheism can alone illustrate by de- 
grees the filiation subsisting between the 

* Coh. ad Gentes, p. 17. 



64 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. IV. 

mysteries instituted at the birth of poly- 
theism and the last philosophical systems 
that preceded its fall, between the sanc- 
tuary of Eleusis and the school of the 
eclectics of Alexandria. In a philosophical 
point of view, the new Platonism was but 
a very imperfect image of the doctrine of 
Plato : some of his ideas might still be dis- 
covered in it, but corrupted and perverted 
from their true signification *. The eclec- 
tics, in bringing them back to Oriental ideas, 
certainly restored them to their true source; 
but this very return must have affected the 
purity of Plato's philosophical conceptions. 
A strange mixture was formed of them 
with the worship of light, the sj^stem of 
emanations, and the doctrine of the me- 
tempsychosis. The abstractions of the 
Grecian philosopher were personified : the 
world was peopled with a multitude of 
intermediate agents. That faculty attri- 

* M. de Gerando, Hist. Comp. des Syst. de Phil. torn. i. 
p. 193. 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 65 

buted to the human understanding of 
seizing on eternal truths without demon- 
stration, and without the power of account- 
ing for them, was erected into a principle; 
and this principle, true in some respects, 
was here a fruitful source of various errors. 
The human mind, distracted by enthusiasm, 
was less employed in the contemplation of 
truth, than of the modes of relation with 
God, as much as with his subaltern agents. 
It might even be said, that the new eclec- 
tics, who more frequently mentioned the 
name of Plato than of Pythagoras, approxi- 
mated rather to the latter and his school, 
which, in fact, was adapted to please them. 
For those at the head of the prevailing 
system availed themselves of the austerity 
of the Pythagorean precepts, and of the 
mystery which covered them ; but they 
employed the authority of Plato's name, 
and never was this authority more imposing. 
The Platonists, most unfaithful disciples of 
the academy, wished also to appropriate 



66 ELEUSIlSriAN [sect. IV. 

the severe empirism of Aristotle : and from 
this mixture resulted a system, strange, 
obscure, full of imagination and poetry; it 
was the last form of polytheism, with which 
it fell 7 . 

It is certain, as we have remarked, that 
the school of Alexandria deviated very 
widely from the doctrine of Plato ; and 
that, in overstepping the limits, it was be- 
wildered in a labyrinth, of which we should 
vainly endeavour to find the outlet : but, 
though we blame the excesses into which 
the eclectics of Alexandria fell, we must 
still render that justice which is due to a 
happy and rare combination of force, 
imagination, sagacity, and genius. It is 
evident, that placed amidst the treasures 
accumulated by the Ptolemies, and become, 
as we may say, inheritors of the ancient 
civilization, and forerunners of the lights 
which were to dawn, the Platonists have 
formed a dazzling epoch in the annals of 
the human mind. It is necessary above 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 67 

all, to study them relatively to those Ori- 
ental ideas, with which their works are 
replete : fortunate would it have been, if 
the spirit of system and the love of paradox 
had not too often induced them to corrupt 
the venerable sources from which they did 
not cease to derive those ideas ! — An as- 
siduous study of the mystic philosophy of 
the Indians, Arabians, and Persians, com- 
bined with modern researches on the 
Platonic philosophy, would yield undoubt- 
edly very great results, and perhaps enable 
us to seize on that invisible but powerful 
chain, which links together those strange 
doctrines that we are accustomed to consi- 
der separately, and which, on that very 
account, appear to us almost incompre- 
hensible 8 . 

It would be equally unjust to imagine 
that, in this great fermentation of ideas, 
the Christian religion was always found 
opposed to philosophy ; never, on the 
contrary, was there an epoch more honour- 

f 2 



68 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. IV. 

able for philosophy than the history of 
Christianity, until the council of Nice. The 
impulse given by the Platonists had pro- 
pagated a taste for philosophic studies. 
Almost all the first fathers of the church 
were accused of having platonised: most 
of them believed that Plato had been 
acquainted with the sacred books : but 
without any examination of those opinions 
generally received, we shall only consider 
them as a positive proof that the Christian 
religion never persecuted true philosophy; 
with which, on the contrary, it has always 
endeavoured to coalesce. We shall close 
this section by a brief summary of the 
principal idea contained in our preceding 
pages. We have endeavoured to prove that 
the religious mysteries of Greece, far from 
being vain ceremonies, actually preserved 
some remains of ancient traditions, and 
formed the true esoteric doctrine of poly- 
theism : when polytheism, near its fall, 
still wished to contend with the Christian 



SECT. IV.] MYSTERIES. 69 

religion, it awakened, faithful to its double 
doctrine, on one side all that was striking 
in the mysteries, and on the other all that 
was most exalted in philosophy. Hence 
that singular coincidence between the re- 
establishment of the mysteries and the 
birth of Platonism : but public worship 
and philosophy had changed characters; 
and it was found impossible to restore any 
thing but empty forms and worn out ima- 
gery, that had mere verbal authority for 
their sanction, were degraded by the abuse 
of ideas, and involved polytheism in their 
fall. 



70 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. V, 



SECTION V. 



It is not our intention to trace all that 
has been attributed to the mysteries, nor to 
discuss the various details connected with 
them. The present essay, as we have 
before said, does not offer itself as a com- 
plete treatise on this interesting branch of 
antiquities; nor can it even supersede any 
of the works already published respecting 
the same subject : designed to afford some 
general views, this tract should be consi- 
dered merely as the outline of a more 
extensive performance, or as a supplement 
to all those with which the learned world 
has been successively enriched. 

This declaration is here purposely re- 
peated, lest we* should incur the reproach 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 71 

of having passed over with silent neglect a 
great portion of that controversy which has 
been excited on the important subject of 
the mysteries. Among the number of dis- 
puted questions, we shall state one which 
seems to merit particular attention, and to 
require some details — " Whether did the 
ancients teach in their mysteries that the 
gods had been only men? and whether, 
in truth, the gods of polytheism had been 
men?" Some illustrious writers have de- 
clared their opinions in the affirmative. 
Supported by Herodotus, Cicero, and Dio- 
dorus Siculus, and the fathers of the church, 
they have maintained at once these two 
propositions; and, at first view, it must be 
owned their arguments seem specious. 
In later times, several persons of equal 
learning and ability have opposed this 
system. We should not unite our voice 
with their objections, if, faithful to our 
principles of literary criticism, we did not 
hope to place the true subject of our re- 



72 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. V. 

searches in some new points of view, from 
which it may derive illustration. 

We cannot too frequently repeat, that 
the examination and discussion of ancient 
authorities, and their chronological classifi- 
cation, are the most certain means by which 
we may discover the important truths in 
the science of antiquity. This rational 
process is equally distant from bold pa- 
radoxology, and from blind and implicit 
submission to any system whatever. How 
many systems are propped merely by some 
passages, badly interpreted, and ill under- 
stood! systems which an exact analysis, or 
a simple collation of dates, would cause to 
disappear ! 

Such, we venture to affirm, is the state 
of our present question — one so intimately 
connected with the mysteries, that it must 
engage our attention ; and, in fact, if the 
secret of the mysteries had been to teach 
the human origin of the gods, all farther 
researches would be useless, and fall of 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 73 

themselves. The true origin of the gods of 
Greece, the moment of their translation 
into that country, and their relations with 
foreign divinities, are lost in the night of 
time. The bases of the history of Greece 
have remained, notwithstanding unheard 
of efforts, inaccessible to the torch of cri- 
ticism ; and, in this respect, the origin of 
Grecian theology, of which the develope- 
ment has been so luminous, is, still more 
than all the rest, covered with darkness. 
We know that Greece, peopled by Asiatic 
colonies, was subjugated in turn, by races 
of men different among themselves, but of 
one common origin. These new colonies 
brought with them the elements of their 
religious worship ; these elements, con- 
founded with the local notions already 
subsisting, gave birth to the Grecian theo- 
gony, which afterwards diffused itself over 
a great portion of the known w r orld, and 
which ended by invading even its own 
cradle 1 . 



74 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. V. 

The Egyptian and Phoenician colonists 
imported into Greece, with their religious 
modes of faith, their languages and their 
traditions ; and the confused vestiges of 
this transmigration may still be found. 
As some remains of Oriental idioms* have 
been discovered in the dialects of Greece, 
so we are enabled to perceive, under the 
varied forms of their mythology, those pri- 
mitive features which announce its foreign 
origin. 

In this state of things, when the im- 
ported ideas can scarcely be distinguished 
from the local notions, any attempt to trace 
back this immense mass to a single prin^ 
ciple would be absurd ; and one might be 
justly astonished at the boldness with 
which later generations have followed er- 
roneous hypotheses through this labyrinth, 
if the strong inclination of the Greeks 
towards a spirit of system were not well 
known, and the obstinacy and bad faith 

* Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. torn. xxx. 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 75 

with which certain learned factions have 
acted in regard to science itself. 

When the rage for systems had seized 
upon Greece, and attention was directed 
towards national antiquities, two parties 
divided the literature, and possessed in 
turn the public credulity. The Epicureans 
professed that they had found, by the help 
of history, the solution of the theological 
system. Euhemerus was the chief of this 
doctrine, which bears his name, and which 
some have styled the historic system, or 
system of the apotheosis, because it sup- 
poses that all the gods have been men 
deified. On a different side, the Stoics 
founded the allegorical system, which, by 
means of abstract ideas, reduced all the 
Grecian mythology to a tissue of moral 
allegories and physical phenomena. This 
physico-mystic system subsequently be- 
came, in the hands of the new Platonists, 
an abundant source of singular opinions ; 
which we have noticed in some passages 
of this essay. 



76 ELEUSINIATST [SECT. V. 

The rapid progress of Epicurism, as 
M. de St e Croix has well observed*, 
gave a prompt circulation to the system 
of Euhemerus. The most judicious writers 
were not exempt from the general preju- 
dice. 

Diodorus Siculus adopted, without re- 
striction, the ideas of the Philosopher of 
Messene 2 . Cicero himself does not ap- 
pear unfriendly to them, although he has 
taken care not to speak in his own name-f-; 
and the fathers of the church found these 
opinions so favourable to their designs, that 
they allowed them to subsist. 

But of all the ancient authorities in fa- 
vour of this system, the most important 
seems that of Herodotus ; who tells us, in 
the first book of his history, that the Per- 
sians had not erected any statues in ho- 
nour of their divinities, because they did 
not believe, like the Greeks, that the gods 
were bom of men % ; for thus has been gene- 

* Recherches sur les Mysteres, p. 519, 
f De Nat. Deor. passim. t Clio, cap. 131. 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 77 

rally understood the word m$%wr&<pu&fe m We 
find, however, that Stanley, the learned 
editor of iEschylus, had already, in the se- 
venteenth century, seized the true meaning 
of this compound, which he expresses by 
" humand forma prceditos*" 

M. Larcher was the first who admitted 
this conjecture in his translation of Hero- 
dotus, published at Paris in the year 1802. 
The celebrated Warburton rejected this 
interpretation ; and Wesseling has not ven- 
tured to adopt it in his Latin version of 
Herodotus. 

To us this appears the only exact in- 
terpretation ; since, if we translate, " The 
Persians did not raise statues, for they did 
not believe that the gods had been born of 
men v' the sense becomes complicated and 
obscure ; the two members of the phrase 
cease to depend one upon the other; and a 
forced signification is given to the root <pv)j 9 . 

* Stanley, ad iEschyli Pers. 811. 



78 ELEUSINIAN [sECT. V. 

which the dictionaries always explain by 
Qvo-tg, statura, status (BAa<rr?7<r<$, &v%qift$ 
fatxiug, Suidas.) 

It is manifest, that if Herodotus had 
wished to express the idea with which his 
translators have so long supplied him, he 
would have chosen some other word, one 
that might have conveyed his meaning in 
a positive and unequivocal manner. 

If, on the contrary, we translate kviga- 
koQvyis according to Stanley's explanation, 
the sense becomes perfectly clear and 
satisfactory ; and in fact, the same passage 
of Herodotus informs us, that the Persians 
adored on the summits of mountains, the 
sun, the moon, and the elements. Now it 
is evident, that as they did not attribute 
the human form to the objects of their 
adoration, these objects escaped the statu- 
ary's art; and therefore, that Herodotus 
only wished to say, that the Persians had 
not any images of gods, because they 
worshipped immaterial objects, which their 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 79 

imagination did not, as that of the Greeks, 
embody under the human form. We shall 
quote, in support of this interpretation, a 
passage which Cicero supposes uttered by 
the Epicurean Velleius, and against which 
his adversary the Stoic does not remon- 
strate. " Happiness," says he, " cannot 
exist without virtue, nor virtue without 
reason, nor reason out of the human form; 
therefore the gods have a human form*." 
We know that this idea adopted by the 
Greeks, w r as common to their poets and 
their philosophers. A passage from Por- 
phyry, cited in the preceding section, shews 
that the Platonists themselves had adopted 
this principle in their mystic doctrine 3 . 

It consequently appears, that Hero- 
dotus only intended to place that anthro- 
pomorphism so characteristic of the Greeks, 
in opposition with the immateriality of 
Eastern worship. 

Far then from favouring Euhemeri$?n, 

* De Nat. Deor. 1. i. 83. 



80 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. V. 

this passage, properly understood, has no 
relation to the historic system, designed to 
undermine all the foundations of the reli- 
gion of the Greeks, as Cicero himself 
acknowledges*. Critics of the best judg- 
ment, Freret, St e Croix, and others, have 
marked the character and progress of 
Euhemerism. If we agree to adopt ge- 
nerally the interpretation proposed by 
Stanley, and at last followed by Larcher, 
there will only remain of ancient authori- 
ties, the known and avowed partisans of 
the historic system, and the fathers inte- 
rested in allowing its existence. These 
alone can be adduced by those who may 
wish to maintain that apotheosis was the 
grand secret of the mysteries : and hence- 
forth, this doctrine will be classed among 
systems made a posteriori; as being at 
once too vulgar to require concealment 
under so many veils, and so destructive of 
every abstract idea, that it never could 

* De Nat. Deor. 1. i. 42. 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 81 

have become the centre of any religious 
faith. 

It is certain, that the Greeks, in con- 
founding their religious notions with those 
transmitted from the East by the Phoeni- 
cians, and above all by the Egyptians, 
admitted into the body of their worship 
some local divinities, and at the same time 
some of those extraordinary mortals whom 
they honoured with the title of demi-gods 4 . 
Herodotus expressly declares, that the 
greatest number of the gods came from 
the Egyptian colonies, from Inachus, 
Cecrops, and Danaus ; but that there were 
several also which came from the Pelas- 
gians, and some that the Pelasgians had 
borrowed from other nations*. 

The class of demi-gods was produced 
by some national heroes in the number 
of Pelasgian divinities ; and these, un- 
doubtedly may be considered as belonging 
to history. -And under this point of view, 

* Herodot. 1. ii. 50—52. 
G 



82 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. V. 

we are authorised in saying that some of 
the gods were men deified; but it is con- 
trary to sound reason, as to all the notions of 
antiquity, that we should suppose the Deas 
optimus maximns, the Dii majorum gentium, 
to have ever been in the class of deified 
mortals. To seek in historical explanation 
a clue which may lead through the maze 
of the religious opinions of the ancients, 
we have already pronounced an absurd 
undertaking; for by saying that these 
Grecian divinities, formed on the model of 
Oriental gods, might represent personages 
who had once existed either in the East or 
in Egypt, we merely elude the question, 
but do not solve it: besides, in attributing 
such an origin to polytheism, we should 
acknowledge ourselves wholly ignorant of 
the elements which compose it. 

The polytheism of the Greeks having 
been formed by degrees, was of course the 
most flexible and least determinate of all 
the religious systems, and accordingly pre- 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 83 

sents many contradictory circumstances. 
We strive in vain to reconcile the popular 
traditions with those of the poets. The 
inhabitants of Arcadia or of Crete, may 
have boasted in turn that their respective 
countries had given birth to Jupiter; yet 
none of them could possibly prove that 
Jupiter had been a person deified*. We 
may account for a still greater increase of 
the confusion by considering, that the 
traditions concerning the gods of the an- 
cients, being blended with the grossest 
anthropomorphism, combined but badly in 
the imagination of the people with the 
supreme power attributed to them ; and 
if, in their highest acceptation, the gods 
of polytheism were actually regarded as 
intermediate powers, the vulgar must ne- 
cessarily have confounded them with those 
personages, famous and little known, re- 
corded in the annals of all nations. 

Homer, to whom we must always recur 

* De Nat. Deor. 1. Hi. cap. 21. 
G 2 



84 ELEUSINIAN f SECT. V, 

when Grecian antiquities are the subject ; 
he, their very source, principium et fom, 
offers no indication of the doctrine of 
apotheosis. His gods are in their nature 
totally different from his heroes : although 
wearing the human form, they belong to 
an order of things infinitely more exalted : 
their power is unbounded 5 . In the father 
of gods and of men, causing the universe 
to tremble at one movement of his brow, 
who could seriously recognise an obscure 
king of Crete, whose tomb was visible in 
that island 6 ? Who could, thus intention- 
ally transform this immense and magic 
world into a miserable genealogy of a few 
unknown princes and fabulous heroes? 

These considerations, with the researches 
already made, will perhaps be sufficient to 
prove, that the historic system is not an- 
terior to Euhemerus 7 ; that it is abolutely 
contrary to the nature of things; and 
therefore that this doctrine has not been, 
at any period, the secret of the Eleusinian 



SECT. V.] MYSTERIES. 85 

mysteries. We may even add, that if, 
against historical evidence and all pro- 
babilities, we were able to prove that the 
doctrine of the apotheosis had been taught 
to the epopts of Eleusis ; yet it might on 
good grounds be affirmed, that such doc- 
trine was erroneous, and inculcated per- 
haps, in the hope of concealing from their 
knowledge, by this very revelation, the 
true secret of the mysteries. 



86 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. VI. 



SECTION VI. 



There yet remains for us to illustrate 
one critical point in the picture of the 
mysteries ; and perhaps we are enabled, by 
a continued study of this branch of anti- 
quities, to offer on the subject some new 
results of observation which may prove 
serviceable in more extensive researches. 

We have already mentioned, that the 
mysteries of Bacchus, most interesting to 
develope, bear a character altogether dif- 
ferent from that of the Eleusinian*. This 
opposition strikes us at once; and what 
conformity could in fact subsist between 
the savage licentiousness of the Bacchic 

* Sect. i. p. 6. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 87 

worship, and the severe character and the 
high destination of the worship of Ceres ? 

Yet, after a serious examination, we 
find that this opposition consists rather in 
the exterior than in the spirit of the two 
worships ; nay, it entirely disappears when 
we raise ourselves to the parent idea, the 
true type of the two institutions. If we 
do not obstinately persuade ourselves that 
Ceres and Bacchus were historical per- 
sonages, if we consider them as originally 
two symbols of some power of the uni- 
verse, we behold them so identified, that 
no other difference exists but in the ex- 
terior form ; that is, in the part depending 
wholly on men, on local circumstances, 
and the political destinies of nations. 

* The worship of Ceres and the worship 
of Bacchus must belong to one principle 
alone ; and this principle is found in the 
active force of nature, viewed in the im- 
mense variety of its functions and its at- 
tributes. v 



88 ELEUSINIAN [sECT.VI. 

But the myth or story of Bacchus has 
been, as all mythographers allow, the most 
fruitful source of uncertainties, contradic- 
tions, and obscurities. In this state of 
things, the most incontestable point is that 
of his origin. Herodotus formally assures 
us that Bacchus came from Egypt, and 
that he was the same as Osiris*. The 
learned Freret has well observed, that in 
passing from Egypt into Greece, Bacchus 
lost the greater part of his importance^. 
In Egypt Osiris was the Demiurgic power 
of the universe : when Melampus had 
given him the Greek name of Dionysus%, 
and had carried him into Greece much 
about the same time that the vine was 
introduced there, the employment of the 
new god was limited to the superintendence 
of the vineyard. This circumstance tends 
to prove the important truth, that we must 

* Lib. ii. cap. 47, 48. 

f Mem. de P Acad, des Inscript. torn, xxiii. p. 258, 

X Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 47. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 89 

not seek to establish evident relations 
between the different symbols of poly- 
theism; they vary, and are divided in 
proportion as they develope themselves, 
whilst the more nearly we ascend towards 
their origin, the more the masses become 
grand and imposing. 

We have before remarked, that no- 
thing is more confused than the myths of 
Bacchus. It is however allowed, that 
three Bacchuses may be distinguished as 
different among themselves; and who, in 
our opinion, are nothing more than three 
successive representations of the same idea, 
that is, of Osiris. 

The ancient and modern mythogra- 
phers, are all at variance respecting even 
the classification of their three Bacchuses. 

The most ancient poets indicate no 
more than one; later writers have divided 
between three Bacchuses, the different 
actions which by the ancient poets were 
confusedly heaped on the same head. 



90 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. VI. 

Diodorus Siculus acknowledges three ; but 
he places in this number the Indian 
Bacchus, very unjustly denominated 
Bacchus ; and he omits the mystical 
Iacchus*. Finally, Nonnus of Panopolis, 
who had particularly and profoundly 
studied the myths of Bacchus, recognises 
three without the Indian 1 . An examina- 
tion of all these varieties would divert us 
too far from the present subject ; and we 
may perhaps hereafter devote a separate 
essay to the myths of Bacchus. Mean- 
while we shall notice what concerns the 
three Bacchuses, according to the classifi- 
cation which may be made of them, from 
the result of all the opinions and various 
doctrines on the subject. 

The first Bacchus is Zagreus, whom 
Jupiter, when transformed into a dragon, 
had by Proserpine. This is proved by the 
scholiast of Pindarf, and the author of 

* Lib. iii. cap. 41. 

t Isthm. viii. 3. ed. Heynii, torn. ii. p. 847. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 91 

the great Etymologicon (in the word 
Zagreus). Arrian describes Iacchus as the 
son of Jupiter and Proserpine*; but he 
evidently confounds him with Zagreus, 
This first copy of Osiris approaches most 
nearly to the original. The forms of the 
myth still exhibit an Egyptian stiffness. 
Torn by the Titans, Bacchus Zagreus per- 
fectly corresponds to Osiris killed by 
Typhon; but the traditions respecting 
Zagreus are very obscure, and the confu- 
sion extreme. He presided at the Diony- 
siacs or mysteries of Bacchus, and even 
appeared in the Sabasian festivals -f. This 
employ the more particularly suited him 
as being the most ancient and oriental of 
the three Bacchuses. 

The second Bacchus is well known as 
the son of Jupiter and Semele : he is also 
entitled the Theban, and the Conqueror. 
Of this Bacchus, the forms are more hel- 

* De Exped. Alex. 1. ii. cap. 16. 
f Clem, Alexandr. Protrept. p. 24. 



92 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. VI. 

lenised ; he completes, for the Greeks, the 
representation of the primitive idea ; but 
has no other relation with the preceding 
than as his successor in the mythological 
cycle. Nor had the second Bacchus any 
direct relation with Ceres, which shows 
that the union of the mysteries did not 
take place until a late period 2 . 

Finally, the third Bacchus is the 
Iacchus of Eleusis; who seems to have 
been imagined only that he might con- 
secrate, in some degree, the alliance be- 
tween the secret worship of Bacchus and 
that of Ceres, - towards which all the mys- 
teries tended. Iacchus is the symbol of 
this association: his only destination having 
been already fulfilled by his birth, the 
myth has remained imperfect ; it is the 
most vague of all. Nonnus represents 
him as son of the second Bacchus by the 
nymph Aura. Others describe him as the 
son of Jupiter by Ceres or by Proserpine, 
which confirms our hypothesis, but gives 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 93 

occasion, in another point of view, to 
confound him with Bacchus Zagreus. 
He is the Iacchus who appeared on the 
sixth day of the mysteries at Eleusis, he 
is the Aiowtrog liri rZ fjuoctrrZ of Suidas (in 

From all these premises we infer, that 
the mysteries of Bacchus have been at an 
unknown epoch united to the mysteries of 
Ceres. And this hypothesis appears to us 
well founded, as far as we can flatter 
ourselves with the hopes of approaching 
truth by a path absolutely conjectural. 

Let us first consider how the young 
Iacchus is employed in the Eleusinian 
mysteries. " On the sixth day/' says St e 
Croix, " the young Iacchus was carried in 
ceremony from the Ceramicus to Eleusis: it 
appears," adds he, "from the hymn which, 
according to Aristophanes, was sung by 
the initiated, that they invited Iacchus in 
their songs, to join in their dances, and to 
serve as interpreter between them and 



94 ELEUSINIAN [sect. VI. 

Ceres*." The statue of the god was 
afterwards carried back to Athens 3 . 

This sixth day, consecrated to Iacchus 
was the most celebrated of all. But it 
requires very little reflection to perceive, 
that this procession, subsequently so 
famous, was at first only an addition, 
foreign to the mysteries of Eleusis ; it had 
not in fact any relation with the basis of 
the mysteries, as may easily be ascertained: 
but this procession reveals incontestably, 
the association of the secret worship of 
Bacchus to the mysteries of Ceres. 

The writers who have hitherto dis- 
cussed this subject have not considered 
it in this point of view, solely because 
they had not classed the three Bacchuses, 
and obstinately refused to acknowledge 
the three as so many copies of one and 
the same type. Several mythographers 
have endeavoured to distinguish between 
Bacchus and Iacchus ; but this attempt 

* Recherches sur les Mysteres, p. 200. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 95 

has been useless. It is manifest, that the 
three Bacchuses are successive imitations 
of the same model, imitations adapted to 
the spirit of the times, and to the local 
situation of Greece. 

The identity of Bacchus and Iacchus 
being once proved, a considerable light 
diffuses itself over all the relations of the 
ancient mystagogy. The mysteries i of 
Greece, should, without doubt, all tend 
towards Eleusis, considered as the true 
depository and centre of all the polytheis- 
tical mysticism : it is therefore clear that 
intimate relations must subsist between 
the secret modes of worship of the prin- 
cipal divinities ; as that of Bacchus pro- 
ceeded from the same origin, and ap- 
parently from the same type, as that of 
Eleusis, the Dionysian must have easily 
connected themselves with the mysteries 
of Ceres. There is in the employment of 
Iacchus, so distinct from the basis of the 
Eleusinian mysteries, something which 



.96 ELEUSINIAN [sEOT. Vi, 

rather bespeaks a later association than a 
perfect identity. 

The idea of a mediator in Iacchus*, 
bears every character of novelty ; the 
ceremonies performed in honour of him, 
seem merely an extension of the worship 
of Ceres. Iacchus did not inhabit Eleusis, 
which may indicate that he did not essen- 
tially participate in the Eleusinian rites. 
All these circumstances combined, prove 
an union of the two worships at a given 
time, an union in some degree symbolised 
by the admission of Iacchus to the cere- 
monies of Eleusis. 

We have already shown, that of the 
three Bacchuses, he alone who could have 
been attached to Ceres without derogating 
from his functions and physiognomy, was 
Iacchus. So this union being once ef- 
fected, Iacchus becomes useless in the 
succession of the myths of Bacchus, and 
altogether lost in the worship of Ceres. It 

* Aristoph. Ran. v. 40. et seq. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 97 

is even probable, that this third Bacchus 
was only imagined, because the two 
former presented forms too determined to 
allow their identification with the character 
of another Divinity. The first, as we 
have observed, was too Oriental or Egyp- 
tian, the second too hellenised, to pass be- 
yond the limits of their respective attri- 
butes. 

A great portion of ancient mythology 
rests on a part of history unknown. Po- 
lytheism, like the Corinthian metal, was 
composed of various elements ; and among 
these were historical traditions: it is evi- 
dent that many theogonical combinations 
represent nothing more than detached 
facts, lost in the night of time. This 
manner of symbolising memorable events, 
is particularly applied to all that concerns 
the secret worships of the different Divi- 
nities. Most of the ceremonies in use, 
had thus some reference either to histori- 
cal epochs or certain symbols, or finally 

H 



98 ELEUSINIAN [sECT. VI. 

to events of which history has not pre- 
served any memorial. 

Polytheism being divided into two 
great parts, the esoterick worship presented 
a multiplicity of ramifications altogether 
unknown to us : with the secret history of 
polytheism we are only acquainted by 
conjecture; and the religious annals of 
the ancient world are covered, for the 
greater part, with an impenetrable veil 4 . 
Let us be satisfied if we can catch a 
glimpse occasionally of some luminous 
points, less fit, indeed, to assist us in our 
researches, than to show the magnitude 
and importance of those objects decidedly 
inaccessible and beyond our reach. We 
may even be assured, that the ancients 
themselves were without information on 
several matters relating to the different 
characters of polytheism. 

At the epoch from which history be- 
gins, the various gradations of mystagogy 
are so many indistinct shadows, only dis- 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 99 

cernible under symbols, of which the vulgar 
did not comprehend the meaning. It is 
therefore very probable that, on this sub- 
ject, such an association as we have esta- 
blished between Ceres and Bacchus, may 
hold the place of an historical demonstra- 
tion. 

Let us add to these inferences a strong 
probability that from the beginning of the 
Dionysiacks, the functions of the Hiero- 
ceryx, were fulfilled by the pontiff of 
Eleusis. It appears also that the Dadu- 
chus, who assisted at the ceremonies of the 
worship of Ceres, attended equally at the 
Dionysiacks*: in their opinions respecting 
this circumstance most of the learned 
agree. And the proof of this fact is highly 
important, since it marks a singular com- 
munity between the worship of Ceres and 
of Bacchus, from the origin of both. 

"VVe shall close our researches on this 
subject, and the present work, by quoting 

* Recherches sur les Mysteres, § vii. art. 3, p. 430. 

H 2 



100 ELEUSINIAN [SECT. VI. 

a passage from Nonnus, which fully de- 
monstrates the union of the Bacchic wor- 
ship with that of Ceres. 

Kal tuv 'EAgycrm'rcn SeoL ira^aycdr^sro BcHk^ocis. 
'Aa<£; $z xovgov 'la.yt%ov sKvn\x<TCLvro X ^ 5 '^ 
Ny/x<pa< x.ur<ro$6gQi Mafa9am£e£* dgTiroycty Ss 
Aoiiuovi vvv.TiyJ^Evrov £xo6<pi<ra.v 'Arfi/Ja irsv/Lr/V. 
Ka» Ssov l\cL<rxovTO ps¥ visa. Usgo-Ecpovslysy 
Ka) SsaeAij^ para. ifalSar SvrfloKia.g 8s Avcclcv 
'O'J/iyovuj CTr^avro yea) dgxsyovcy Alo>v(tcv } 
Ka» TgiTctruj veov vpvov hitscr^a^dy^o-av 'Ia^cu 1 
Kai rsXsralg Tficr<rf,<rfi/ Iba^syS^crav 'ASrjvai, 
Ka< %0f ov o$>iT£\E<rrov dveytgovo-avro rfo\~Tai, 
Zay^Ea yivSatvovTES dpa, B^CryJw, yta) Ia^a, *. 

" i\nd the goddess (Pallas) consigned 
the infant (the third Bacchus) to the 
priestesses of Eleusis. The nymphs of 
Marathon crowned with ivy danced around 
the young Iacchus, — to celebrate his birth 
they waved the Attick torch by night, and 
propitiated the god, after the son of Proser- 
pine (Zagreus), and after the son of Semele 
(Bacchus, the Theban). Thej' instituted 

* Dionys. 1. xlviii. v. 958. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 101 

sacrifices in honour of the old and of the 
new Bacchus, and they addressed a new 
hymn to the third Iacchus : Athens cele- 
brated triple mysteries, and its citizens 
formed a chorus in honour of Zagreus, of 
Bromius, and of Iacchus/' 

This passage combines all the charac- 
teristics of authenticity, and alone suffices 
to give a solid basis to our conjectures. 
Those who have studied these subjects know 
that Nonnus, besides his poetical talents, 
possessed a vast fund of mythographical 
erudition, which he chiefly employed on 
the various shades of the myth of Bac- 
chus. In removing from this picture the 
colours laid on by imagination, we shall 
recognise the historical fact, and local tra- 
dition that served for its canvas. 

We may here, also observe, that Mi- 
nerva, who delivers Iacchus to the priest- 
esses of Eleusis, would seem, according to 
the poet's thought, a symbol of the city of 
Athens, of which she was the tutelar Di- 



102! ELEUSINIAN [SECT. VI. 

vinity. We have seen, in fact, that lac- 
chus resided at Athens, and was thence 
carried in ceremonious pomp to Eleusis, 
on the sixth day of the initiations. No 
hint, however slight, should be omitted, 
when the subject of discussion is so subtile 
and symbolical as the mystagogy of the 
ancients. Monsieur de Villoison has made 
use of the passage above quoted from the 
Dionysiacks of Nonnus*; but that learned 
Hellenist contented himself with explain- 
ing it as bearing reference to the three 

* The opinion of Monsieur de Villoison on this subject, 
is expressed in one of the notes which he added to the 
" Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisme " of M. de 
St e Croix, and which he published under the name, but 
without the knowledge, of that learned antiquary. It ap- 
pears that, in this note, M. de Villoison adopted the re- 
flections of another scholar, who had written, in the mar- 
gin of a copy of the Dionysiacks, a commentary on the 
passage of Nonnus above cited, in which he thus remarks: 
" Nonnus certe accurate tres Bacchos distinguit ; Proser- 
pina^ Semeles, et Aurae nlium. Alii Iacchum cum Semeles 
filio confundunt. Optime Nonnus, qui tres Bacchos tribus 
Atheniensium Dionysiacis applicuit, quot fuisse auctores 
passim testantur, &c." (Recherches sur les Mysteres, § iii. 
art. 5. p. 120. 



SECT. VI.] MYSTERIES. 103 

Bacchuses. Neither has he, nor M. de 
St e Croix, attended to that alliance between 
the secret worship of Ceres and that of 
Bacchus ; an alliance which diffuses new 
light over all the history of the ancient 
mystagogy. 








NOTES. 



SECTION I. 



(1.) On the mysteries of Samothrace, it is necessary 
to consult the ingenious dissertation of Doctor Mun- 
ter, bishop of Seeland, published under the following 
title, " Erklarung einer griechischen Inschrift, welche auf 
die Samolhracischen Mysterien Beziehung hat," (Kopen- 
hagen, 1 810.) We therein find that the learned Zoega, 
in studying ancient monuments, began to direct all 
his attention towards the mysteries. If death had 
not interrupted his labours, the monuments relating 
to Eleusinian antiquities would, undoubtedly, have 
furnished him with an ample harvest of observations. 
Zoega claims particular praise for having combined 
all known opinions respecting the alphabetical writing 
of the Egyptians. The dissertations of M. Silvestre 
de Sacy and of M. Akerblad on the Rosetta Inscription, 
induced us to expect that this important subject would 



106 NOTES TO SECTION I. 

soon be completely illustrated. The new researches 
of M. Etienne Quatremere seem to confirm this hope. 
The application of the Coptick language to Egyptian 
monuments is probably the process by means of 
which we may finally discover the ancient alphabet 
of Egypt. 

(2.) If we analyse the character of the mystical 
ideas which the ancients attached to Bacchus, and 
the character of the worship of Ceres, we shall be- 
hold, on one part, a state of rudeness and wild licen- 
tiousness, and on the other, the elements of society 
combining themselves with the principles of laws and 
of order. I have endeavoured to show, however, in 
the Sixth Section, that the secret worship of Bacchus 
agrees in more than one respect with the mysteries of 
Ceres. 

(3.) This veneration for Ceres appears in the Thes- 
mophorian rites, which were celebrated by the Athenian 
women in the temple of Ceres — Thesmophora (or law- 
giver). It seems that they were called Thesmophoria, 
because, on the last day of this festival, the women 
carried on their heads, in full ceremony, the books of 
the laws. On this subject may be consulted a learned 
memoir by M. du Theil (Mem. de VAcad. des Inscript. 
torn, xxxix. p. 203). See also M. Clavier's " Histoire 
des premiers Temps de la Grece," 1809, torn. i. p. 
31, &c. 

(4.) Ego quidem nunquam tantum mihi sumam, ut, 



NOTES TO SECTION I. 10? 

non dico annum, sed saeculum quo res Graecorum an- 
tiquissimse acciderunt, definire ausim. (Meiners, Com- 
ment. Societ. reg. Scient. Gotting. vol. xvi. p. 217.) 
"Je dirai seulement que Porigine des mysteres re- 
monte aux temps les plus recules de la Grece, et se 
confond avec celle de sa civilisation, et personne ne 
doit etre assez hardi pour en fixer l'epoque. La 
langue d'Homere n'est pas celle d'un peuple qui est 
sorti recemment de la barbaric Defions nous des 
gens qui savent tout, et qui fixent des epoques dans 
les immenses deserts qui precede le cercle etroit des 
temps bien connus : a l'ignorance seule appartient 
une telle hardiesse." (Origine de tons les Cultes, torn. ii. 
part ii. p. 280.) Dupuis, without doubt, has strangely- 
abused his erudition ; but his opinion is, nevertheless, 
of considerable weight, when the date of an historical 
event is in question. 

(5.) One of the Oxford marbles (Marmor. Oxon. 
ed. Chandler, tom.ii. p. 21) places the foundation of 
the mysteries under the reign of Erectheus. Lami, in 
his notes on the first chapter of Meursius's Eleusin. 
(Op. Meursii, torn. ii. p. 547) conjectures, that the 
year, half effaced on the marble, may be about 1399 
before Christ. Homer is supposed to have lived 990 
or 1000 years before Christ. 

(6.) In speaking here of Homer's writings, we do 
not comprehend the hymns generally regarded as 
falsely ascribed to him, and which are less the original 



108 NOTES TO SECTION I. 

productions of the age of Homer than the tardy fruits 
of his school. 

(7.) This discussion, which has much engaged the 
critics, is not yet, perhaps, terminated. In 1777, M. 
Schneider, then young, attacked the authenticity of 
the Orphick poetry with so much vigour, that the 
celebrated Ruhnkenius thought himself obliged to 
enter the lists. It appears, however, that he became 
a champion less from conviction than from an appre- 
hension of seeing shaken the authority of a philo- 
logical system long since established. Hermann, in 
an ingenious dissertation annexed to his edition of 
the Orphick Poems (Orphica, Lipsiae, 1805, in 8vo« 
p. 676), says, " Igitur neminem hac estate tarn in anti- 
quis litteris rudem inveniri arbitror, qui cum Gesnero 
hac scripta qua Orphei nomen pr& se ferunt, vel unius 
omnia scriptoris esse, vel dictionem habere Homericam, 
sibi persuadeat, Hymni quidem quin et Argonauticis et 
Lithicis antiquiores sint, dubitari non potest ; quanquam 
etiam et in hymnis sunt qui recentioris cetatis non dubia 
contineant indicia." 

The opinion of Hermann in this case is by so much 
the more decisive, as he has particularly employed 
himself on the Orphick fragments. Honour to the 
country which still possesses Heyne*, Wolf, Hermann, 
and Schneider ! 

* This illustrious scholar died at Gottingen on the 11th of July, 
1812. A few days before his death he wrote me a last letter, in 






NOTES TO SECTION I. 109 

It will excite a smile to consult, respecting Orpheus, 
a work printed at Paris in 1808, and entitled " Histoire 
d' Homer e et d'Orphed," by M. Delille de Sales. This 
author, desirous of " instructing youth how to cultivate 
the arid fields of antiquity " but who has not " divorced 
himself from his heart" speaks of the " affability and 
the graces of Orpheus which enchanted the Egyptian 
priests." He conjectures that this hero of conjugal 
love saved Eurydice from a disease pronounced mor- 
tal by the empiricks of that time, and that he only 
lost her " pour avoir voulu se montrer epoux, avant 
d'avoir affermi sa convalescence." He also assures us 
that Orpheus was the son of a king, " because he says 
so himself in his Argonauticks :" and that he was the 
father of Musaeus, "so well known on account of his fine 
poem of Hero and Leander." Against the exactness 
of this marvellous calculation, it can be proved that 
the poem of Musaeus is not older, at most, than the 
fourth century of the Christian era. If this manner 
of studying the ancients should be imitated, we might 
fear that, under a new form, would revive that spirit 
which reigned in literature at the time when disputes 
were agitated concerning the ancients and moderns ; 
deplorable and ridiculous discussions, which Fonte- 
nelle wished to terminate by a decision well worthy 

which he acknowledged the receipt of this work in the most flattering 
terms. Of the esteem of such a man as Heyne it is allowable to 
be vain. 



110 NOTES TO SECTION I. 

of the cause ; saying, that the whole question might 
be reduced to an inquiry whether the trees which 
grew formerly in our grounds were larger than those 
of the present time. 

(8.) The scholiast of Apollonius Rhodius (Argon, i. 
917) relates, that Agamemnon, uneasy at the insub- 
ordination of the Greeks before Troy, caused himself 
to be initiated ; and that Ulysses had also been initiated 
at Samothrace : but this evidence is of no weight, 
and cannot counterpoise the silence of Homer. The 
total absence of mystick ideas in Homer, appears to 
me, besides, an additional proof of the scrupulous 
fidelity with which the Rhapsodists and Diascevasts 
(the compilers) have treated, in a historical point of 
view, the primitive tradition. The imitators of Ho- 
mer, as we see in the instance of Quintus Smyrnseus, 
have taken the utmost pains to preserve the Homerick 
colouring. 



NOTES TO SECTION II. Ill 



SECTION II. 



(1.) On this subject see the five memoirs of Abbe 
Mignot (Mem. de VAcad. des Inscript. torn, xxxi.), 
wherein that learned academician combats with singu- 
lar force the hypothesis, which makes Egypt the centre 
of civilisation. He proves, that the Indians never 
went to seek instruction or information in Egypt. 
We cannot too much admire the sagacity with which 
this author has divined, as it may be said, the new 
discoveries : if he had understood the Sanscrit, and 
possessed the materials of which we can now avail 
ourselves, he would have completed his work by de- 
monstrating, that the Egyptians have borrowed all 
from Asia. Some trifling differences in religious wor- 
ship or civil policy need not detain us : it is clear 
that in every country local notions and customs be- 
come blended with foreign ideas, and often pervert 
or misrepresent them. 

(2.) It is very remarkable, that the priest of Sai's, 
who is introduced as a speaker in Plato's dialogue 
entitled Timaus, begins the history of his country by 



112 NOTES TO SECTION II. 

that of the Atlantis. Bailly had already made this 
observation. This is a formal proof that the Egyptians 
knew themselves to be not Autochthones : which, how- 
ever, does not demonstrate that they were acquainted 
with their true origin. The Egyptian priests were con- 
sidered as an Asiatick colony even among the ancients. 
Zonaras says, speaking of the science of the Egyptians, 
'Ex, XaX#a*W ydg Xsysrou <poirr]<rou 'focuta, nt^og Alywirroy, 
ytaksBrsv itfos "EXXYjvas — " It is said that these things 
came from Chaldea into Egypt, and thence into 
Greece." (Ed. du Cange, Venet. 1729, torn. i. p. 14.) 

(3.) Eusebius preserves a fact which has not hitherto 
been adduced, and which proves the ancient relations 
between India and Egypt. (Praep. Evang. l.iii. p. 1 15.) 
Toy AYffuovgyov, ov Kvxcp ol Alyvittioi rfgo<ra.yo§evou<riv, — rr]v 
— p/fO<ay sx, xvocvov [xsXavo$ syoyrct, x^octovvta, £cuv>jv xou 
cxyjirrgov (Xsyova-iv). That is, "The Egyptians repre- 
sented the Demiourgos Kneph of a blue colour, in- 
clining to black, with a girdle and a sceptre." It is 
impossible not to recognise in this image the Indian 
Vishnil. In the mythology of the Hindus, says Wil- 
ford (Asiatick Researches, vol. hi. p. 571), Brahma's 
complexion is red, Vishnu's dark blue, and Hara's 
white. We know, besides, from the Pur anas, that 
Egypt was under the special protection of Vishnu. 
Wilford adds, " Osiris of a black complexion is Vish- 
nu." (As. Res. vol. xi. p. 94.) It must be observed, 
that the title of Kneph has been often confounded 



NOTES TO SECTION II. 113 

with the name of Osiris ; that the title of Iswara has 
heen confounded with the name of Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Siva, as we shall see hereafter. Without attach- 
ing much importance to etymological deductions, 
may not some analogy be discovered between the 
Greek word xvstpas, which signifies obscurity (whence 
is derived the verb xvs<pd&, I make dark), and the 
Egyptian name of Kneph, the dark or black god? 
It is affirmed that Kneph signified in Egyptian the 
good genius, the a,ya^o^ccl[j,ujv of the Greeks and Phoeni- 
cians. See Gale, in Jamblich. p. 301. 

(4.) " If we consider the Egyptian Osiris not as a 
name but as a title of supremacy, which each sect, as 
their doctrines became in turn the established religion 
of the country, applied exclusively to the object of 
their worship ; and if we consider it as the same with 
the Sanscrit Iswara (the Supreme Lord), it will greatly 
illustrate the identity of the religions of Egypt and 
Hindustan, by a close coincidence of historical fact. 
The three great attributes of the Deity had, in course 
of time, been erected into distinct Deities, and man- 
kind had divided into sects; some attaching them- 
selves to Brahma, some to Vishnu, and others to Siva, 
The contention of schismaticks from the same stock 
is always more inveterate than where the difference 
is total : the sect of Brahma claimed exclusive pre- 
eminence for the object of their choice, as being the 
creative power, the Iswara, or ( Supreme Lord.' The 



114 NOTES TO SECTION II. 

two other sects joined against the followers of Brahma , 
and obtained so complete a victory, as to abolish 
totally that worship : the sect of Siva being the most 
powerful, rendered theirs the established religion, and 
claimed for Siva in his turn the exclusive title of 
Isimra. The sect of Vishnu, or Heri, at length emerged 
from its obscurity ; and, in concert with the followers 
of the Sacti, or female power, destroyed and abolished 
the sect and worship of Siva : thus Vishnu, or Heri, 
became the Iszvara, and his worship the established 
religion. This seems to have been the case in Egypt: 
for, if ws substitute the name of Osiris for Brahma, 
Horus for Vishnit, or Heri, Typhon for Siva, and Isis 
for the female principle, the history agrees in all its 
parts." (Paterson on the Origin of the Hindu Re- 
ligion, As. Res. vol. viii. p. 44.) The ascertaining of 
this affinity is by so much the more important, as it 
accounts for all the variations discovered both in the 
Indian and Egyptian myths. 

(5.) The learned Le Clerc (Bibl. Univ. torn. vi. p. 87) 
believed these words to be Phoenician, and explained 
them as signifying " to watch and abstain from evil" 
Court de Gebelin {Monde Prim. torn. iv. p. 323) inter- 
prets them thus, " Assembled people, lend your ears, or 
listen" — he derived them from the Hebrew. The 
celebrated Barthelemy, when consulted by Larcher, 
the translator of Herodotus, replied (in 1766), that 
these words, foreign to the Greek language, appeared 



NOTES TO SECTION II. 115 

to him Egyptian, because the mysteries of Eleusis 
must have come from Egypt; and that, respecting 
their signification, he was obliged to acknowledge his 
ignorance. {Voyage d'Anacharsis, torn. v. notes, p. 538.) 
(6.) The original passage of Hesychius, in the word 
Ko'y£ ofwraf, is as follows : 'EitHpuvypa fereXeerpeyois* *a* 
t'tjs Sixoto-'fixyjs tyy)<pov ^%0£, w$ 6 tv}$ kXs^/v3§oc$. Hafd $e 
'ArnxSif, (3x6^. (Ed. Alberti, vol. ii. p. 290.) Under 
the word ITdJ, Hesychius explains tfdg by ?s\o$ %x m > 
where Tollius would read Xsysw. Funger, one of the 
annotators, says, " Vox Ttag, quatenus silentium signi- 
ficat, plane est Graeca (?) non Romana. Cum enim 
silentium imponebant, aut quse dicta erant, indicta 
vellent, tunc #d£ dicebant. Extant sane hsec Diphili : 
(Athen. Deipnos. Ep. l.ii. c.26:) 

"0%ov; §8 KorvKfjV. TLd%. Tlird^; 

Falluntur qui admirationem eo signijicari volunt. Ac- 
cording to Scaliger, this word was used to impose 
silence, the finger being placed on the mouth ; and a 
conversation was terminated by 7rd£. Cum ex sermone 
prasentes dimitterent, turn itot% dicebant. (Auson. Tollii, 
p. 499-) Many passages from the comick Latin writers 
attest the sense of this exclamation, and the manner 
of employing it. Thus a verse of Terence (Heauton. 
Act. IV. Sc. in. v.39): 

Unus est dies, dum argentum eripio : pax ! nihil amplius, 

IS 



i 



116 NOTES TO SECTION II. 

See also verse 50 of the same play : and in Plautus, 
Mil. Glor. Act. III. Sc.i.v. 213. Pseud. Act.V. Sc.i. 
v. 33. Stick. Act. V. Sc. vn. in fin. Tritium. Act. IV. 
Sc. n. v.94 ; where Saumaise very unnecessarily would 
read tax, making, by a false analogy, pax proceed 
from pago, and tax from tago. The word pax was pre- 
served till the time of Ausonius. See the work en- 
titled Grammaticamastix , at. the end (ed.Tollii, p. 495). 
The Greek derivatives of this word are, 1°. I7u7ra£, 
equivalent to the Latin papa;, expressing astonishment 
or admiration, whence is formed the verb itvmtd^siv, 
employed by Aristophanes (Equit. 677). — 2°. 'Eir'nta^, 
or £Tfird%, which, according to some commentators, 
signified successively, or in order, or, as Hesychius ex- 
plains it, "on the left." — 3°. ' Kn?oTta% t which is rendered 
by ^v^TtcLv and irccvfsXoo;. 

Professor Morgenstern of Dorpat has quoted, in 
the Journal which he publishes (Dorpatische Beytrage, 
1814, p. 462), a passage of Cicero (Somn. Scip. c. 2), 
thus expressed, according to the text of Ernesti : 
" Hie cum exclamasset Lalius, ingemuissentque cceteri 
vehement ius, leniter arridens Scipio, Qm&so, inquit, ne 
me e somno excitetis et parum rebus: audite catera? 
In this passage, which had escaped my notice when 
I published the first two editions of this Essay, the 
words parum rebus are evidently corrupted. Aldus 
relates, that in two manuscripts they were replaced 
by pax sit rebus, which words have been adopted in 



NOTES TO SECTION II. 117 

some editions. Graevius proposed to read, " Queeso, 
inquit, ne me e somno excitetis. Pax ! verum audite 
cater a." Bouhier prefers parumper to verum. M. 
Morgenstern conjectures, with much appearance of 
truth, that the word pax, which the copyists believed 
to be a corrupted reading, has been blended with the 
first syllable of parumper ; and that the last, by a false 
collocation of letters, has been transformed into rep, 
or reb ; whence rebus. This passage of Cicero con- 
firms the explanation which I have proposed of the 
word pax.* It is desirable that those who have op- 
portunities of consulting manuscripts should take the 
trouble to examine such passages of different authors 
as contain the word pax, which has almost always 
been thrown out from the printed texts. The prose 
writers would probably offer an abundant harvest, as 
the measure of verse renders the exclusion of a word 
difficult and bold, while prose easily suffers the most 
capricious attempts. 

The word konx has not passed the threshold of the 
temple of Eleusis : but the destiny of the word pax is 
very singular. While its origin and true mystical 
signification were, perhaps, not known but in the 
interior of the sanctuary of Ceres, this word, equally 

* [Ramus has adopted the reading of Aldus's MSS. pax sit rebus, 
and interprets it by tacete. Gronovius argues against it, but appa- 
rently without reason. We must observe that Planudes found the 
same reading in his copy; for he translates — 'ahh. eJ^rj ^Vw (read 
Ixttw) ro7g irqiy uaviv, wg dxovtrou xal tsc A<W7ra.] — Paris Ed. 



118 NOTES TO SECTION II. 

foreign to the language of Greece as of Rome, had 
penetrated into the habitual life of the nations of 
antiquity. Placed last in the famous formula, it 
thence, apparently, contracted the signification of end, 
connected with that of silence. Every thing, besides, 
conspired to attach an idea of discretion and of mystery 
to this exclamation. It was under these false ac- 
ceptations that it circulated, and became established 
in the ancient languages, and even in our modern 
dialects : for the word pax is, in this sense, without 
doubt, the origin of paix, used in French as an ex- 
pression equivalent to silence / 

Anquetil du Perron has observed, that the word 
which Theodore of Mopsuesta (Photii BibL ed. of 
Rouen, 1693, p. 199) translates by ru%7j, fortune, is 
bakht, a Zend word, preserved in the Persian, and 
signifying fortune, or destim/. As the Sanscrit and 
the Zend have many roots in common, the word bakht 
is seemingly the Sanscrit Pakscha, which in the vulgar 
dialects is transformed, as Wilford says, into Vakht, or 
Vakhs, bearing the same signification as the Zend word. 

To prove still more clearly the identity of Canscha 
and of Pakscha with the words noyg and #a£, it may 
be observed, that the two Sanscrit words are com- 
monly pronounced Cansch and Paksch. Every con- 
sonant in the Devanagari alphabet is supposed to 
contain an inherent vowel, which is expressed with 
sufficient accuracy by a short, and which is neces- 



NOTES TO SECTION II. 119 

sarily pronounced in reading Sanscrit, unless some 
particular mark be added under the letter : thus Pa- 
rama is pronounced Par am, when the sign or mark is 
added to the final letter. 

This rule is observed in the Bhakha, or Bhasha, the 
Pracrit, and the Bengali ; only that, in the vulgar 
dialects, the inherent vowel of a final consonant is 
almost always omitted : so that, in Pracrit, one of the 
gods is called Ram, and not Rama, as in Sanscrit ; 
and Git Govind (a fine poem, by Jaya Deva, on the 
loves of Crishna and Rhadi), as pronounced in Ben- 
gali, must necessarily be Gila Govinda in Sanscrit. 

We shall offer another observation. If, on the one 
hand, it were desirable that, in Wilford's explanation, 
the word opita% should correspond to a single Sanscrit 
word ; on the other hand it may be objected, that a 
formula of such high abstraction, composed of three 
words, is much more in the spirit of the philosophy 
of numbers, as we see that it retraces, in some degree, 
the favourite and characteristick idea of the Trinity 
in Unity. It is useless to add, that the Greeks might 
easily have written in two words, what at first had 
been divided into three. 

These considerations, undoubtedly, give some ad- 
ditional interest to Wilford's conjecture : but, however 
ingenious may be his explanation, we do not under- 
take to decide, by means of it, whether the mysteries 
were originally Indian, or whether India borrowed 



120 NOTES TO SECTION II. 

them from some other country of the East. Neither 
do we undertake to determine whether the exterior 
form of the mysteries, such as we know them, does 
not belong exclusively to Greece; which may per- 
fectly agree with our hypothesis respecting their true 
origin. Similar researches would, in general, have 
no other result than vain hypotheses. It would be a 
more important object to seek traces of the mysteries 
in the religious s}'stem of the Indians. Except the 
formula explained by Wilford, we know not that any 
vestiges of similar institutions have been discovered 
among them. We may hope, it is true, that the 
peace which now unites the whole world will give 
fresh activity to the English Ltdianists. What had 
been done, during the space of seven or eight years, 
by the English, had been almost wholly unknown to 
us. We see, with admiration and surprise, the con- 
tinued developement of Oriental studies, both in 
England and among the English in their Indian set- 
tlements. This is sufficiently proved by a prodigious 
number of dictionaries and grammars, the printing of 
original texts, and, above all, the flourishing state of 
the college founded in 1800 at Fort William, in Cal- 
cutta. Let us hope that the learned men of every 
European country will unite with those of England 
in promoting the advancement of general knowledge : 
it is the patrimony of all and of each. Germany, 
which has deserved so well of the human mind, will not 



NOTES TO SECTION II. 121 

withhold her contribution. In the midst of political 
convulsions, she preserved unextinguished on the con- 
tinent of Europe the torch of Grecian and Oriental 
philology ; and will not relinquish the brightest orna- 
ment of her literary crown. Louis the XVIIIth, who 
has known the vaiue of literature in adversity, has 
founded in the " College de France" two new profes- 
sorships, one of Sanscrit, the other of Chinese ; which 
nearly completes the course of study in the Special 
School, established near the Bibliotheque du Roi in 
Paris. This example will be speedily followed: a no- 
ble emulation will be the result of such united efforts. 
I had already ventured to form this wish at an epoch 
when it might have appeared chimerical. The hopes 
mentioned in my first Essay (published in 1810), under 
the title of " Projet d'une Academie Asiatique" are, 
perhaps, on the eve of being realised. I cannot close 
this article without offering the homage of my public 
thanks to M. Langles, so well known by his numerous 
and extensive labours, and by the rare liberality of 
his literary principles, for the honourable and flatter- 
ing manner in which he has noticed my Projet d'une 
Academie Asiatique, when he was enjoined by the third 
class of the Institute of France to examine this work, 
as he himself has declared in a number of the Mer- 
cure Etranger. 



129 NOTES TO SECTION III. 



SECTION III. 



(1.) It is very remarkable, that most of the ancient 
theologies commence with a fall which follows a 
combat. The first event of Indian tradition is the 
struggle between Brahma and Mahadeva, which ter- 
minates with the fall of the former. Osiris was killed 
by Typhon, in Egypt. Isis avenges the death of her 
husband by an obstinate battle with the murderer of 
Osiris. We know that Typhon was the evil principle 
(Plut. de hide et Osiride, p. 113, et seq.), as Isis was 
Nature personified, the universal goddess, <pv<ri; itay- 
aiokos, ifdvfoov ^rr^. (Gruter, Inscript. p. xxvi. 10.) 
I do not presume to establish a system on these cir- 
cumstances : but let it be added, that the most ancient 
religious ceremonies have been expressive of grief 
and lamentation ; that Adonis was the subject of 
mourning in Phoenicia, as Osiris in Egypt ; that 
Adonis and Osiris are proved to have been the same 
personage (Selden de Diis Syr. syntagma n. Eumdern 
enim Osiridem et Adonin inteUigunt omnes) ; that their 
festivals, exactly alike, were divided into three parts ; 



NOTES TO SECTION III. 123 

the loss or disappearance, d<pavi<ry,b$ — the search, 
tyjTuja-is — and the finding, sv^ea-ig : we shall then, per- 
haps, discover in these myths and usages, the traces 
of one of those great religious traditions which have 
diffused themselves every where. It is evident that, 
far from being preserved in their purity, these tra- 
ditions were soon confounded with the doctrine of 
two coexisting principles ; a doctrine which has been 
the foundation of almost all the religious and philo- 
sophical ideas of the ancients. The explanations 
which have hitherto been given of these primitive 
myths, are neither so unobjectionable nor so satisfac- 
tory as to preclude new conjectures. 

(2.) That which chiefly opposes the investigation of 
the most simple mythological facts, is the multiplicity 
of systems established by various writers on the reli- 
gious system of the ancients. It may, without doubt, 
be explained by means altogether opposite, and in a 
manner sufficiently plausible : thus, some have re- 
ferred it wholly to agriculture — others to astronomy — 
some to history. We learn, from the example of 
Euhemerus {Mem. de VAcad. des Inscript. torn. viii. 
p. 107), that the ancients had already given themselves 
up to commentaries of this kind. These different 
modes of explaining the same mythological system 
proceed, almost always, from the changes which the 
symbols have undergone. Polytheism was essentially 
figurative. A great number of religious practices 



124 NOTES TO SECTION III- 

represented the same moral or historical notion ; and 
this was often expressed in different places by dif- 
ferent symbols. Thus, every where are found traces 
of the solar worship ; and, in fact, many of the sym- 
bols relate to the source of light and of fecundity : 
but the sun itself was only the greatest and most 
ancient symbol of the Divinity, received among all 
nations. So that if these symbols and monuments 
sometimes designated a worship rendered to the ma- 
terial sun, still more frequently do they testify that 
the idea of God's unity and immateriality was pre- 
served in the midst of polytheism, perhaps without 
the knowledge of the polytheists. We must not, 
then, stop at the first explanation offered : we must 
examine whether the idea explained may not itself 
comprehend another idea. Without this precaution, 
the most serious errors and most incoherent systems 
are quickly multiplied. 

(3.) There are many dangers to be avoided in the 
study of antiquity. Next to the misapplication of 
etymology, nothing is more deplorable than the abuse 
of historical comparisons ; a rage for which has be- 
wildered the most learned men. Thus, the famous 
Bishop of Avranches discovered a perfect analogy 
between Moses and Adonis — Fourmont, between the 
patriarch Jacob and the Typhon of the Egyptians — 
Fra. Paolino da San. Bartolomeo, between Menu, the 
Indian legislator, and Noah. We must not here for- 



NOTES TO SECTION III. 125 

get the protestant minister Croese, who, in a bulky 
work entitled " Homerus Hebraus" has demonstrated 
that Homer's heroes are all personages celebrated in 
the Bible. According to him, it appears, from a 
thousand circumstances, that Ulysses with the nymph 
Calypso is Lot with his daughters. 

(4.) Non semel qucedam sacra traduntur : Eleusis ser- 
vat quod ostendat revisentibus. Rerum natura sacra sua 
non simul tradit : initiatos nos credimus ; in vestibulo ejus 
liar emus. Ilia arcana non promiscue nee omnibus pa- 
tent ; reducta et in interiore sacrario clausa sunt. (Senec. 
Qu&st. nat. vii. cap. 31.) Plato, to express how few 
had penetrated the true sense of the initiations, thus 
says, Ela-i yd§ &), <pa,<r\v oi tfsfi tag fsXsroig, va§&y}xo<p6f>oi 
/xgv itoXXoi, Bobc%o< $s ts tfavgoi. (In Phaedon. § 13.) 

(5.) The grand principle on which polytheism rest- 
ed, was, as the learned Warburton has ably proved, 
the admission of all religious ideas. "The Master of 
the universe," says Themistius, " seems pleased with 
this diversity in the forms of worship : he wishes that 
the Egyptians should adore him in one manner, the 
Greeks in another, the Syrians after a third fashion ; 
and even all the Syrians do not observe the same 
mode of worship." (Orat. xii. ed. Hardouin. p. 160, A.) 

(6.) The temple of Ceres at Eleusis was held in 
such respect, that even Xerxes, the declared enemy 
of the gods of Greece, and the destroyer of their tem- 
ples, spared it, if we may believe Aristides. (Orat. 



126 NOTES TO SECTION III. 

Eleus. torn. i. p. 451, C.) Alaric completely overthrew 
it in the year of Christ 396. The priests were dis- 
persed : many fell beneath the sword of the barba- 
rians — some died of grief: among these was the cele- 
brated Priscus of Ephesus, then ninety years old, who 
had once been a favourite of the Emperor Julian. (Le 
Beau, Hist, du Bas-Empire, torn. vi. p. 48.) M. d'Ansse 
de Villoison copied several inscriptions at Eleusis. 
(Mem. de V Acad, des Inscript. torn, xlvii.p.283, et seq.) 
M. de Chateaubriand explored the ruins of Eleusis 
where at present is situate the place called Leptina. 
It does not appear that the eloquent traveller was 
much struck by the beauty of those ruins. (Itineraire 
de Paris a Jerusalem, tom.i. p. 157 — 163.) 

(7.) Count Stolberg, to whom, undoubtedly, all 
must allow a high degree of piety and considerable 
information, has adopted, in his excellent History of 
the Christian Religion, that hypothesis which trans- 
ports into the East the germ of Grecian mysteries ; 
and deduces them from the first revealed notions. 
(Erster Band, vierte Beylage; uber die Quellen morgen- 
landischer Ueberlieferungen, 438—473.) 

(8.) The secret of the mysteries was never revealed 
but by some persons, who thereby became instantly 
devoted to death and the public execration (Meurs. 
in Eleus. cap. 20) ; for the loss of life and the confis- 
cation of property did not satisfy the law : a column, 
exposed to every eye, perpetuated the memory of 



NOTES TO SECTION III. 127 

their crime and punishment. (Voyage d'Anach. torn. v. 
chap. 58.) Opinion, more strong than law, repressed 
the guilty. Horace, who was parens Deorum cultor et 
infrequens, says, 

— i — Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 

Vulgarit arcance, sub isdem 

Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum 

Solvat phaseium. 

Lib. III. 2—26. 

iEschylus, accused of having revealed some part of 
the mysteries, only escaped from popular resentment 
by proving that he had not been initiated. (Clem. 
Strom, ii. 416.) A reward was offered for th head of 
Diagoras. We find in Plutarch an account of all 
that befel Alcibiades, in consequence of having imi- 
tated the ceremonies of the mysteries. Aristotle was 
accused of impiety by the Hierophant, under pretence 
that he had profaned the mysteries of Ceres in sacri- 
ficing, after the rites of Eleusis, to Pythias, adoptive 
daughter of the eunuch Hermias, who governed Lydia 
in the Persian monarch's name. In consequence of 
this accusation, Aristotle retired to Chalcis in Eubcea, 
where he died. (Diogen. Laert. in Aristot.) 

(9.) Barthelemy agrees nearly with Warburton in 
the explanation which he gives of the mysteries. 
(Voyage d'Anach. torn. v. chap. 68.) In a note at the 



128 NOTES TO SECTION III. 

end of that volume, after having proved the inter- 
polation of the Palinody ascribed to Orpheus, he adds, 
" En otant a Warburton ce moyen si victorieux, je 
ne pretends pas attaquer son opinion sur le secret des 
mysteres, qui me paroit fort vraisemblable. ,, 

(10.) Stark (uber die Myst. cap. v. p. 76) conjectures, 
that Socrates had refused to be initiated from an ap- 
prehension that, in discovering the great truths of 
philosophy, he might be accused of betraying the 
doctrine of the mysteries. This ingenious hypothesis 
establishes a great conformity between the secret ob- 
ject of the mysteries and that of the philosophers. 
But this conformity may be doubted. Philosophy 
had also her esoterick doctrine, which must, however, 
have consisted rather in bold speculations than in 
religious traditions. Philosophy and the mysteries 
coincided in their common contempt for the popular 
worship : but the opposition of philosophy and mysta- 
gogy on every other point was, nevertheless, a po- 
sitive fact. The Socrates of Plato is generally re- 
garded as a personage completely idealised. This 
observation is confirmed by those praises of the 
mysteries which Plato supposes his master so fre 
quently to utter : witness two beautiful passages of 
the Phcudo. (Plat. Opp. torn. i. ed. Bip. p. 140—157.) 

(11.) " I have seen," says Dionysius of Halicar- 
nassus, " all the persons assembled in theatres ex- 



NOTES TO SECTION III. 129 

press at once their disapprobation at a false move- 
ment, or an error in pronunciation." (De Compos. 
Verb, inter opera Diony. Halic. torn. ii. p. 17, ed. Huds. 
Oxon. 1704.) 






130 NOTES TO SECTION IV, 



SECTION IV. 



(1.) "For we can assign/' says Warburton, "no 
surer cause of the horrid abuses and corruptions of 
the mysteries (besides time, which naturally and fa- 
tally depraves and vitiates all things), than the season 
in which they were represented; and the profound 
silence in which they were buried. For night gave 
opportunity to wicked men to attempt evil actions; 
and secresy, encouragement to repeat them : and the 
inviolable nature of that secresy which encouraged 
abuses, kept them from the magistrate's knowledge 
so long, till it was too late to reform them." (Div. 
Legat. of Moses, vol. i. book ii. sect. 4, p. 190, ed. 1755.) 

(2.) Apollonius Tyanaeus, without belonging to any 
particular school, was, nevertheless, a very active per- 
sonage in the grand system of opposition. Respecting 
Apollonius, it is said by Gibbon, that we cannot at 
present determine whether he was a sage, an impostor, 
or a fanatic. His life, written by Philostratus, is a 
tissue of traditions and fables, yet a work not devoid 
of interest. 



NOTES TO SECTION IV. 131 

(3.) The Platonists, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, 
have maintained, that Ammonius Saccas, born in the 
Christian religion, became a convert to polytheism. 
Eusebius and Saint Jerome affirm that he persevered 
in the Christian faith. Among modern writers, Brucker 
joins with the Platonists. The pious and learned Le 
Nain de Tillemont adopts the sentiments of the Chris- 
tian doctors. Mosheim thought that Ammonius had 
blended the Christian religion with Eclectism. 

(4.) There are two Celsuses — both Epicureans : one 
flourished under Nero ; the other under Hadrian and 
his successors. This latter Celsus wrote, against 
Christianity, a work which Origen refuted. 

(5.) This symbol is of the highest antiquity. The 
Indians have always employed it. Fra. Paolino da 
San. Bartolomeo has published (from the Borgian Mu- 
seum), in his Systema Brahmanicum, a Yoni (matrix), 
under the figure of a triangle in a lotos flower. See 
on the Indian symbols a fragment of Porphyry, quoted 
by Stobaeus, in Eclog. Phys. Li. cap. 4, §56, and in- 
serted in the Porphyry of Holstenius, p. 182. 

(6.) A protestant divine of the seventeenth century 
accuses the Pythagoreans and Platonists, down to 
Marsilius Ficinus inclusively, of having been able 
sorcerers, and very familiar with the devil. (See Col- 
berg's Platonisch-Hermetisches Christenthum, Frkf. und 
Leipzig, 1690, torn. i. p. 168, et seqq.) It must be 

observed, that the doctrine of the Platonists continued 

k 2 



132 NOTES TO SECTION IV. 

long in full vigour. Towards the middle of the fif- 
teenth century, Gemistus Pletho, one of the last among 
them, undertook to establish a new system of religion 
in the taste of his masters. Gennadius, the patriarch 
of Constantinople, having censured this work, con- 
signed it to the flames. A manuscript preserved in 
the Bibliotheque du Roi contains a letter, wherein the 
patriarch exposes the doctrine of Pletho : nothing 
more of it remains. See, respecting this manuscript, 
a curious but too succinct dissertation, by M. Boivin. 
(Mem. de VAcad. des Inscript. torn. ii. p. 715.) Gemistus 
Pletho was placed at the head of the Platonick Aca- 
demy founded at Florence by Cosmo de Medici. (See 
Heeren's Gesch. der Class. Litt. torn. ii. p. 35, et seq. 
and Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo di Medici, 1806, vol. i. 
p. 49.) 

(7.) A continued perusal of the new Platonists will 
evince the truth of the picture which I here only pre- 
sent under its principal features. Every thing con- 
spires to render such a course of reading difficult : the 
nature of the subject — the loftiness and the obscurity 
of style — the scantiness of materials — the diversity of 
opinions ; even the indifference of criticism respecting 
the materials which we still possess. There is but one 
Greek edition of Plotinus (that of Bale, 1580) ; one of 
Proclus, printed in a style of mediocrity at Hamburg 
(16 18) ; one of Jamblichus, with the notes of Th. Gale 
(Oxford, 1678). Porphyry and Maximus Tyrius have 



NOTES TO SECTION IV. 133 

been more frequently printed : one of the most com- 
plete editions of the former is that by Lucas Holste- 
nius (Cambridge, 1685). We have many editions of 
Maximus Tyrius, from the first, by Henry Stephens 
(1557), to the last, published by Reiske (1774). To 
these we must necessarily add the Emperor Julian's 
writings, which have not been wholly reprinted since 
the appearance of Spanheim's edition (in 1696) ; and 
a selection of fragments found in Libanius and The- 
mis tius : of the former there have been several editors. 
But all these works, as those of the other Platonists, 
are rare and costly: the typographical execution is 
not always handsome nor correct; and the reader is 
generally disappointed in the criticism of the old 
editors. In fact, we still want a Collection of the Pla- 
tonists. Such a work, under the direction of distin- 
guished scholars, and enriched by the helps which we 
now possess, would constitute an epoch in the study 
of literature and of philosophy. Exoriare aliquis.* 

(8.) M. Gorres, author of the work entitled My then- 
geschichte der Asiatischen Welt (Heidelberg, 1810), has 
made some attempts in this way : but to me they seem 
premature. We find, in the Memoires de I'Academie 
des Inscriptions (torn, xlvii. p. 53) y that an academician, 

* M. Creuzer, professor at Heidelberg, is engaged in preparing a 
complete edition of Plotinus ; and the specimen which he has pub- 
lished encourages us to expect much from his labours. A young 
native of Strasburg, M. Heyler, is employed on Julian. 



134 NOTES TO SECTION IV. 

named M. FAbbe Fenel, flattered himself with the 
notion of having discovered, in the works of Plato 
and of his reputed disciples, the new Platonists, the 
secret of the ancient mysteries. He had read some 
remarks on this subject to the academy ; but they 
have never been printed. The principle adopted by 
Abbe Fenel, must, necessarily, have led him into 
eiTor. We might, perhaps, have obtained some 
collateral researches of great value ; but the main 
question would have been obscured by an additional 
system. 

The fourth volume of M.Creuzer's work {Symbolik 
und Mythologie del alten Volkef) did not reach me 
until long after the first edition of this Essay had 
been published. Whatever may be the learning and 
talents of that author, I have been able to make but 
little use of his researches on the Eleusinian mysteries. 
Not only is the object which he had in view totally 
opposite to mine, but the very foundations of our con- 
jectures are different. In the mysteries of Eleusis, 
M. Creuzer thinks he can discern the contest of Spirit 
and Matter. He discovers, also, many points of con- 
tact between Ceres and Bacchus : but they are alto- 
gether foreign to those which I have noticed in the 
Sixth Section of this work. While I object, however, 
to some of M. Creuzer's ideas, the novelty of his 
opinions, and the singular sagacity which appears in 
most of his combinations, must be acknowledged. 



NOTES TO SECTION IV. 135 

See, among others, some very remarkable observa- 
tions on the knowledge which the Platonists pos- 
sessed of the mysteries, and of the notions respecting 
them which they have been able to communicate (torn. 
iv. p. 549—554) : but these observations I have not 
found it possible to adopt without restriction. See 
also (p. 536, et seqq.) what he says respecting the in- 
fluence of the mysteries on some ceremonies and ex- 
pressions adopted by Christianity. 






136 NOTES TO SECTION V* 



SECTION V. 



(1.) Through a singular reaction, the Grecian 
theology, sprung from Eastern ideas, ended by being 
the type to which the Greeks willingly traced all fo- 
reign notions. Thus, they who had received Bacchus 
from Egypt, gave, in turn, the name of Bacchus to 
all the divinities with which he had any analogy. 
From the same principle resulted a multiplicity of 
Jupiters, Mercuries, Venuses, &c. The Greeks even 
went so far as to discover in foreign theogonies, those 
divinities which belonged exclusively to Greece, such 
as Hercules, &c. 

(2.) Eusebius has preserved, in the second book of 
his Praparatio Evangelica, a fragment of the sixth 
book of Diodorus, in which an account is given of the 
opinions of Euhemerus, and of his journey in the fa- 
bulous island of Panchaia. Against the absurdities 
of this story, Plutarch has protested. Speaking of 
the Egyptian gods, he declares himself afraid to dis- 
cuss certain particulars ; " for this," says he, " would 
throw open the great folding-doors to an atheistical 



NOTES TO SECTION V. 137 

multitude, who separate divine from human affairs ; 
and would sanction the impostures of Euhemerus, the 
Messenian. This man, having himself composed a 
work replete with incredible fables, diffused every sort 
of impiety throughout the world, abolishing all those 
who have been esteemed gods, and transforming them 
into the names of ancient generals, admirals, and 
kings, as written in golden letters at Panchaea, or 
Panchon, which no man, whether Greek or Barbarian, 
ever happened to see, except Euhemerus himself; 
having sailed to the country of the Panchonians and 
Triphylians, people not existing in any part of this 
earth." (Plut. de Isid. et Osir. § 23.) 

(3.) An eloquent passage of Maximus Tyrius, closed 
by a magnificent peroration, developes, on this point, 
the doctrine of the Platonists (Dissert, viii. particu- 
larly § 3) ; but the adoption of this principle does not 
by any means prove that the gods have been men. 
The idea of lending the form of man to the Divinity 
is certainly one of the first assimilations of the human 
mind, and the most natural error. The ancient uni- 
verse was full of anthropomorphism. 

(4.) We know, from the evidence of Herodotus, 
that the Egyptians did not render divine honours to 
heroes. (Lib.ii. cap. 50.) The class of demi-gods is 
originally Grecian. 

(5.). It would be very wrong to seek, in the meta- 
physical ideas of Homer, a strict concatenation ; and 



138 NOTES TO SECTION V. 

those are to be pitied who only read his immortal 
master-pieces with the prejudices of men of letters. 
All systems respecting Homer are false: he has, in 
turn, been regarded as an historian, a theologian, an 
alchymist, a geographer, a moralist — and Homer is a 
poet! This point of criticism is applicable to the 
manner in which we view the whole of antiquity. It 
cannot be too frequently repeated, that, in the present 
state of human knowledge, the only system which we 
should follow, in history, in philology, in mythology, 
and in criticism, is not to adopt any system. We do 
not thence undertake to affirm, that a logical order 
and rational process should be neglected : — we only 
wish to say, that, far from submitting to any of the 
theories which have hitherto prevailed, we should, in 
order to seize upon the true genius of ancient times, 
present ourselves, divested of all prejudices, in the 
immense arena of antiquity, and study science in 
every ramification ; not in its chimerical relation with 
our own ideas, but as placing ourselves (if the ex- 
pression may be allowed) in the centre of each of 
those vast circumferences, which few men can, in 
truth, wholly pervade, but of which every person can, 
at least, appreciate the extent. 

(6.) Kgyfss ds) tysveroci' koCi yoiq *oi<pov, cJ avoc, trsto 
Kgrjres lisY.rqwv'tv <ru $' ov S&vs$, £<r<r) yoL% alsi. 

Callim. in Jov. 8. 

(7.) It is not improbable that some detached doc- 



NOTES TO SECTION V. 139 

trines on this subject may have been current before 
Euhemerus. We only mean to say, that he was the 
first who fashioned them into a system. Euhemerus, 
as we learn from Diodorus, was contemporary with 
Cassander, king of Macedon. 



140 NOTES TO SECTION VI. 



SECTION VI. 



(1.) The Memorial of Lucius Ampelius, first pub- 
lished by Saumaise, and afterwards by Graevius, at 
the end of Florus (Amst. 1702), enumerates five Bac- 
chuses. The first is the son of Jupiter and Proser- 
pine ; an agriculturist, and inventor of wine : Ceres 
is his sister. The second Bacchus is son of Meros and 
Flora : he gave his name to the river Granicus. The 
third is son of Cabirus, who reigned in Asia. The 
fourth is son of Saturn and Semele. The fifth is son 
of Nisus and Hesione. {Ed. Grcev. cap. 8.) The in- 
coherences accumulated together in this nomencla- 
ture, may give us some idea of the chaos of mytho- 
logical traditions respecting Bacchus. In mentioning 
the great importance of Nonnus on this subject, we 
hasten to announce, that his Dionysiacs, of which the 
text has hitherto been so much disfigured (and which 
has not been reprinted during two centuries), are on 
the eve of publication, with comments, by Professor 
Gr'afe, already well known from the success of his 



NOTES TO SECTION VI. 141 

Meleager. (Lips. 1811.) The first volume of the Dio- 
nysiacs is in the press at Leipsick. 

(2.) The second Bacchus, it is true, had not any 
direct relation with Ceres ; and yet we may affirm, 
that he was educated by Rhea, Cybele, who is so 
perfectly confounded with Toua, Ayd, rTjarJr^^ Arypjr^, 
and, finally, Ceres. (Diod. 1. i. § 1. c. 7.) 'H 'A^u), 
xcu Utt);, y.oti 'EA/Vq Tr^ug, yea) Trj, ytoc) Arj^yjtY^, 75 awry 
(Hesychius, in the word 'A%&»?a/.) In general, the 
myth of Cybele was so united with that of Rhea, 
and the myth of the Earth with that of Demeter, 
that it is not possible to determine the shades of 
distinction. That the poets have differed extremely 
on this subject, appears from iEschylus, when he 
mentions Earth, 

" Whose names are many, but her form the same. 7 ' 
Toua, tfoWw oyo^aTaiv frogiprj y,lcx. 

Prom. 210. 

It seems that, in all this, we should distinguish that 
which belongs to the different epochs of Grecian my- 
thology. Tata Ga'ia, which the Romans called Tellus, 
is among the divinities of the first dynasty; those 
Titanian divinities which preceded the circle of the 
Magni Dii : a circle, it must be owned, very vaguely 
defined, from Homer to the latest mythographers. 
Demeter appears only as the successor of Gaia in the 
mythological cycle. It may be further conjectured, 
that, while symbols of the same idea, Gai'a and De- 
meter had this distinction between them : — that Gai'a 



142 NOTES TO SECTION VI. 

rather designated the entire, the totality, the depths 
of this terrestrial globe ; Demeter, its surface, the soil 
fit for agriculture, the fruits and productions which 
enrich or ornament it. In support of this observa- 
tion, it may be remarked, that the primitive or Titanian 
divinities possessed, in comparison with the succeed- 
ing dynasty, something very colossal in their pro- 
portions. This is proved by the Prometheus of jEschy- 
lus. However it may be, we should not here expect, 
as in the generality of theogonies, an historical, strict, 
and exact deduction. See some excellent observa- 
tions on this subject, in Creuzer's Symbolik, torn. iv. 
p. 331, et seqq. 

(3.) Pindar (Isthm. vii. 3) calls Bacchus xatotoKgofov 
ledoefyov Aocpd,rego$ — aristrepa assessorem Cereris. A 
passage from Sophocles is no less remarkable : 

UoXucuvv^s, KatyMccs 

Nvy,<pas dyak^oc, not) Aib$ 

fiagvggspsfa, yevdS) 

Kkvfoiy 05 dy.(peit£is 

'IfocXiocv, pefcis §h ntay- 

xolvov 'Etevrivlas 

Ayovs h KoXitois, 

» Bax%gy, x. f. A. 

Antig. v. 1115—1121. 

" O thou with many names, ornament of the daughter 
of Cadmus, offspring of the thundering Jupiter ; thou 
who presidest over powerful Italy, who reignest in 
the bosom of the Eleusinian Ceres ; O Bacchus, &c." 



NOTES TO SECTION VI. ^ 143 

These authorities are the more important, as being, 
of this kind, perhaps the most ancient that can be 
quoted in favour of the alliance between Ceres and 
Bacchus; yet no person has before noticed them. 
The Scholiast of Pindar says, that Bacchus, placed 
near Ceres, was, according to some, Zagreus ; accord- 
ing to others, Jacchus. Among several well-known 
marbles, we shall here remark an inscription, given 
by Gruter (p. 309), which exhibits, with other words, 
deo. iaccho. cereri. et. coRffi. A medal of An- 
tinous, struck by the inhabitants of Adramyttium, in 
Mysia, joins to his name the title of IAKXOC, alluding 
to his character as paredros, or assessor of the Eg}^p- 
tian gods. When Hadrian wished to immortalise his 
favourite, he bestowed on him the title of Assessor 
of the gods honoured in Egypt, as appears from the 
celebrated inscription, published also by Gruter, 
'Avtivdiy, <rvvQ§ovu> tcvv hv Alyvirruj Seuov, x. r. a* The title 
of paredros given to Antinous, procured for him that 
of Iacchus from the people of Adramyttium, a colony 
of Athens. (See Eckhel, Doctr. num. vet. t.vi. p. 528 
— Rasche, Lexicon Numism. torn. i. p. 738.) An epi- 
gram, in the Anthologia, exhibits Iacchus compared 
to an infant of ten months, suckled by his mother. 
(Branek. Anal. torn. iii. p. 292 — and Jacobs, Animadv. 
in Anthol. torn. iii. part ii. p. 237 ; and part iii. p. 139.) 
(4.) The more profoundly we study the ancient 
religions, the more we may congratulate ourselves on 



144 NOTES TO SECTION VI. 

living at an epoch when the human mind soars above 
this labyrinth of popular modes of worship, without 
morality, and without dignity. It is, perhaps, the 
only point in which we enjoy any advantage over the 
ancients : but this advantage is immense. The double 
doctrine of the ancients condemned the world to an 
eternal servitude. Whilst a few men, enlightened by 
the most sublime knowledge, penetrated into the high- 
est regions of thought ; the multitude languished in 
a deplorable state of blindness, amidst shameful su- 
perstitions, which were carefully cherished, and deco- 
rated with all the deceptions of imagination. Every 
thinking man should esteem himself fortunate in 
having been born under the influence of a religion 
purely intellectual, equally accessible to the peasant 
as to Newton, and of which the character is as divine 
as its origin. We feel, in giving ourselves up to these 
considerations, that sort of satisfaction and honour- 
able pride which an Englishman ought to feel when 
he compares the constitution of his country to the 
despotic governments of the East, which have this 
point in common with the false religions, that they 
degrade man whilst they corrupt him. 

We find, in one of those religious chants which 
the ancient Liturgy of the Greek church has pre- 
served, some passages, sufficiently eloquent, respect- 
ing the double doctrine, as placed in opposition with 
the universal instruction of Christianity.—" Ye, Apo- 



NOTES TO SECTION VI. 145 

sties of Christ, however homely in speech, have shown 
yourselves profound in wisdom ; for ye have resolved 
the intricate reasonings of philosophers, the subtilties 
of rhetoricians, and the calculations of astronomers. 
It is, therefore, evident that none but yourselves are 
instructors of the world." This apostrophe is followed 
by a very curious passage : " Peter speaks, and Plato 
is mute; Paul teaches, Pythagoras disappears. Final- 
ly, these lowly apostles, speaking from God, commit to 
the tomb the dead eloquence of Greece, and awake the 
universe to the service of Christ."— -Oi \6yw ISiwtai, 
(ro<po) rf, yyuxrei £0<f>0^i'e, TiXoxd; tdov Xoyojv foov <pi\o<ro<pajv 
Xv&ocvTss, pyjtopcvv ?£$ SiaitXoxds, xou tyfaws da'T'^ovo^ouv. 
$io ' Arfoo-foXoi fov Xgictov fLOvoi ntoiovjs olxovpavys ayeSefajhftf 

dibdcxocXoi 'O UsTgo; prfiogsvei, xa) Hxdtujv xa.tourly7)<rs. 

8i$d<rxei UolvXos, UvQocyogas sfovs. Xontov, t'ujv 'AtfocroXcvv 
SsoXoyojv o $yjy,o$ -rtjv t'ojV 'EXXfjVwv vsxgdv (pQoyyyv xoctol- 
Qdrfrsi, xa) rov xoc^ov trvveyslgsi rf§b$ Xocrgsiav Xgurfov. 
(Vetus Officium Quadragesimale, ed. Card. Quirini, 
Venet. 1729, part i. p. 256.) 



146 ; 



EXPLANATION OF THE ENGRAVINGS. 



The gem (a fine root of emerald), which ornaments 
the frontispiece, is taken from the Imperial collection of 
the Hermitage. It represents Triptolemus on the car of 
Ceres, and has not before been published. A detailed 
account of it will be found in the learned work which the 
counsellor of state, M. Koehler, is nozv preparing, and 
which will lay before us all the treasures of the Imperial 
cabinet. 

The conformity of this gem with the painting which 
has furnished a subject for the second engraving {see 
page V), deserves the notice of antiquaries. This device is 
borrowed from M. Millin's valuable work on Ancient 
Vases (torn. ii. pi. xxxi), and represents Triptolemus, 
Ceres, Hecate, and Rhea or Cybele. The upper part is 
omitted. M. Viscontis's explanation of this picture may 
be seen in M. Millin's work. It is derived from the Hymn 
to Ceres, a composition attributed to Homer. 



147 



At the end of the Sixth Section is represented Ceres, 
sitting on a stone, which exhibits on one side the Indian 
Triad, composed of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva or Ma- 
hadeva, as it appears among the ruins of the famous 
temple in Elephanta, near Bombay, described by Niebuhr. 
(Voyage en Arabie, Amst. 1780, torn. ii. p. 25.) The 
other side exhibits the head of Isis, as found on an 
ancient Egyptian brick, of which Count Caylus has 
given the figure in his Recueil d'Antiquites (torn. iv. 
pi. xv. no. 4). 



L2 



OBSERVATIONS 

OCCASIONED BY 

MR. OUVAROFF'S 

ESSAY 

ON THE 

€leu0tntan Jftpsteriesu 

{Communicated to the Translator by Mr, Christie.") 



OBSERVATIONS, 



The Author of the foregoing Essay has 
contented himself with marking on his canvass 
the general outlines of a very learned design, 
intending perhaps at his future leisure, or leav- 
ing it for other colourists, to supply the smaller 
accessories, that may complete his view of the 
Eleusinian mysteries. The observations here 
subjoined may serve as further materials, or as 
suggestions for an alteration in the drawing of 
parts of his performance. They are offered, 
by no means, in confidence of their being free 
from error, with the highest esteem for Mr. 
OuvarofPs learning, his philosophy, and the 
firm conviction he displays of the most impor- 
tant fundamental truths. 



152 OBSERVATIONS. 



Of the Antiquity of the Mysteries* 

A difficulty will perhaps have occurred to 
the reader at the outset of this work, from 
Mr. OuvarofF having too indiscriminately 
treated the foundation and the growth of the 
mysteries. His meaning may be collected to 
be this : that the developement of the mysteries 
at Eleusis was progressive, and that they arrived 
at their full celebrity not earlier than the time 
of Homer, or that of the establishment of the 
Greek republicks. But Mr. OuvarofF has 
evinced too ready a compliance with the notions 
of Meiners and Dupuis; and he has involved 
the origin of the mysteries in unnecessary 
doubt. The names of several founders being 
quoted in the preceding pages, upon the 
authority of ancient writers, it could neither 
be requisite to throw the question open into 
" the vast deserts of uncertain times" with 
Dupuis, nor to reduce it to so low an epoch 
as the rise of the Greek republicks. Very few 
of the festivals of Greece were known to its 
first inhabitants. They were introduced from 



OBSERVATIONS. 153 

the East by some of the very founders there 
cited. On this principle, Melampus seems to 
have a peculiar claim. It may be difficult to 
state the very year, but the age of their institu- 
tion need not be overclouded with uncertainty. 
Mr. OuvarofT remarks, that neither are the 
mysteries noticed, nor can mystic ideas be 
traced in Homer ; a difficulty which the his- 
torian of them may never surmount. He would 
hence infer, that the foundation of them was of 
later date. But the deities selected by Homer 
for the machinery of his poems, were wholly 
independent of the mysteries, and took their 
rise from a very different, perhaps a later 
source. I would seek the origin of the Eleusi- 
nian shews in earlier times, and deduce the 
imagery adopted by Homer, from causes con- 
nected with the improvement of these shews 
by foreign settlers in Greece. The mysteries 
of Eleusis were in fact of Pelasgic origin, in 
as much as they were derived from those in 
Samothrace which the Pelasgi founded; and 
although I apprehend that imagery was by no 
means excluded from the latter, yet could they 
have furnished no suitable materials for the 



I54f OBSERVATIONS. 

Iliad. The personifications of Grecian poly- 
theism were subsequent to the practice of 
Pelasgic rites in Thrace, and may have fol- 
lowed very soon after the introduction of them 
at Eleusis. The rites of the Pelasgi were al- 
most peculiar to themselves. Had the Cabiric 
worship been known in Phoenicia, says a learned 
English antiquary,* Cadmus needed not to 
have gone so far as Greece or Thrace to be 
initiated. But Cadmus having learned this in 
Samothrace, established it in Bceotiat ; and 
after the introduction of these mysteries into 
Attica, we may conclude that various Egyptian 
strangers contributed greatly to their attrac- 
tion, by employing in them the symbolical 
paintings of Egypt which they brought with 
them. The simple objects of the Pelasgic 
worship were hence embodied ; a taste for 
personifying became general. Poetry was 
enriched by it, and painting and sculpture 
were rapidly improved. When Homer after- 
wards selected a superior order of personages, 

* Wise, history and chronology of the fabulous ages, 
p. 42. 

f Upon the foundation of Thebes by him, 1494, A. C. 



OBSERVATIONS. 155 

(ready fashioned to his hand, and not devised 
by him), to increase the interest of his poems, 
forgetting the abstract properties which they 
had originally represented, he described them 
to the life, and engaged them in natural action. 
The poet of nature would have little taste for 
primitive traditions or metaphysical doctrine, 
when other more promising materials were at 
hand. Hence the earlier establishment of the 
mysteries, and Homer's silence respecting 
them, are perfectly consistent; nor does it 
seem necessarily to follow, that the theology of 
Homer was anterior to all metaphysical combi- 
nations. 

It is in the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey, 
if in any part of Homer's poems, that mystic 
allusions might have been expected; but none 
such appear. We have there a display of 
poetical necromancy, but not the smallest re- 
ference to the Eleusinian shows. The punish- 
ments in Tartarus are very briefly noticed at the 
end, and a great part of the book consists of an 
evocation of the Manes ingeniously and feel- 
ingly introduced, to acquaint the reader with 
the concluding events in the lives of several 



15b OBSERVATIONS, 

great leaders, for whom an interest had been 
excited in the Iliad. In one instance Homer 
has been thought to have mysticised. The 
northern and southern entrances to the cavern 
of the Nymphs, in the Thirteenth Book of the 
Odyssey, ver. 109, 110, 112, resemble much 
a certain Rabbinical conceit, that very possibly 
originated among the Mystagogues at Babylon, 
from whom the Jews might have collected it 
after the first captivity ; and Homer might 
have heard of it long before. But we may 
rather believe the coincidence to have been 
purely accidental *. 

The authorities adduced by Meursius and 
Bishop Warburton, leave very little doubt that 
the mysteries of Eleusis were founded in the 
reign of Erectheus t, to whom the Athenians, 
by a courtly compliment, ascribed them. But 
other more probable inventors have been 
named. Theodoret indeed places the intro- 
duction of them one hundred years later, when 

* This is explained at length in Windet's tract. — De 
vita functorum statu, ex Hebraeorum et Graecorum compa- 
ratis sententiis, p. 96. et seq. 

f He reigned fifty years, from 1398, A.C. 



OBSERVATIONS. 157 

he affirms that they were brought to Eleusis by 
Orpheus, who afterwards improved them on 
his return from Egypt. Orpheus is styled by 
Theodoret a native of Odrysa, a country near 
mount Rhodope ; but for the share he had in 
the improvement of them, it is quite enough to 
know that Orpheus was a northern with regard 
to Attica. According to Androtion, cited by 
the scholiast upon Sophocles, Eumolpus, the 
fifth in descent from a Thracian of the same 
name, imparted them ; and this is more fully 
recorded by Acesodorus in the following state- 
ment. The aboriginal inhabitants of Eleusis 
waging war against Erectheus, called in Thra- 
cian auxiliaries, among whom was Eumolpus, 
the fifth of his line, and he it was who founded 
the mysteries. Thus the improvement of them 
may be referred to Egypt, but they were of 
Thracian origin. 

Of the celebration of mysteries in Thrace, 
several notices appear. Samothrace *, Im- 
brost, and Lemnos, were Thracian islands, 

* ©fr/wnj ts Y.a.^o; KogvgdvTiov dtrru. Dionys. Perieg. 
f *H^£ "Ijj&gos, ©f axwij \lzv sari v^aos, Isgdi Katsfgwy ko) 
av?y}. Eustath. in Dionys. 



1SS OBSERVATIONS. 

famous for Cabiric and Corybantian rites ; and 
these again were imparted to them by the 
Pelasgi % The Pelasgi and the Thracians may 
have been the same people ; at least we dis- 
cover, that these mysterious doctrines and rites 
were not first derived from Egypt, but were 
established in Greece, by a people who came 
north about, and brought with them their opi- 
nions and ceremonies from the centre of Asia. 
I mean not, from these deductions, to establish 
the antiquity of one particular race of people, 
in preference to another ; but I would correct 
any unfair prejudice that may be entertained 
in favour of Egypt. Both nations received 
their learning from one central point, and at 
the same early period. I would merely shew, 
on these authorities, that the Pelasgi were the 
first to communicate what they knew to the 
Aborigines of Greece. 

We may now therefore endeavour to meet 
a complaint of Mr. OuvarofF, in an early part 
of his Essay, that the analogy which subsisted 

* "Oa-fig 8s foe Kafeifwv ogyiot pepvrjfca, toi %afbQQ$mef 
sitifiXsoviri Xot&6vre$ hol^ol WzXcltjwv. x. 'ft A. Herodot. 
See Meursii Graec. Feriat, v. KaSe/f ici. 



OBSERVATIONS. ] 59 

between the mysteries in Samothrace and 
those at Eleusis has never yet been satisfac- 
torily determined. This analogy will best ap- 
pear from considering the agents in both of 
them. The priests at Eleusis were four in 
number: the Hierophant, the Torch-bearer, 
the Assistant at the Altar, and the Sacred 
Herald. They severally bore the symbols of 
the Demiurgus, the Sun, Moon, and Mercury. 
It is probable, that at first they were actors in 
a drama. In later times they contented them- 
selves with shewing and explaining the ma- 
chinery within the temple # . 

The Cabiric priests in Samothrace were 
four. The scholiast upon Apollonius Rhodius 
has named them Axieros, Axiocersos, Axio- 
cersa, and Casmilus. The scholiast also 
terms them Ceres, Proserpine, Hades, and 
Mercury ; doubtless he meant to mark their 
correspondence with these deities at Eleusis. 
For the Pelasgian founders of the mysteries in 
Samothrace had no names for the gods, ac- 

SsiKvvujv. Hesych. — " The Hierophant is the mystagogue, 
or priest, who sheweth the mysteries." 



160 OBSERVATIONS. 

cording to Herodotus, who expressed himself 
as a polytheist ; and where no distinction of 
names obtained, the unity of the Deity was 
perhaps acknowledged. These Samothracian 
cabirs therefore, (as the word cabir implies,) 
were rather powers or attributes than deities. 
With these may also be mentioned the Idaei 
Dactyli of the Phrygians, who are said to have 
received their mysteries from Samothrace 
about the time of Dardanus. Among these 
was a personage named Celmis, who, it may 
be believed, was no other than Casmilus or 
Camillus. Acmon and Damnameneus were 
also of their number, if the latter be not two 
appellations blended together, for Maneus and 
Acmon were both names of Titanian kings. 
Thus however it would appear, that Celmis, 
Camillus, Mercury, and the Sacred Herald, 
(and I will add Iacchus,) were relative cha- 
racters. 

From the want of better means of illustrat- 
ing a subject on which ancient writers have 
observed so profound a silence, the accompany- 
ing engraving from a Sicilian painted Vase * is 

* This Vase, (of which I have likewise elsewhere at- 
tempted an explanation), may not have been of much earlier 



OBSERVATIONS. 161 

offered ; as it exhibits something like the four 
priests or agents in the Samothracian and 
Eleusinian shows. In this the Hierophant ap- 
pears as a workman at his forge, in which 
capacity he properly personates the Demi- 
urgus *, bearing a sledge hammer ; in the same 
way as the Cabiric Vulcan is represented on 
some ancient coins. Thus the character of the 
Idaean Acmon may be determined, for his name 

antiquity than the beginning of the Christian sera. Nor 
may it have represented either the mysteries of Samothrace 
or Eleusis. But we know that mysteries were celebrated in 
many other parts of Greece, in imitation of the latter, and 
that they were accompanied with similar rites. My reason 
for supposing it related to these rites, results from my per- 
suasion, that the paintings of the black and red Greek Vases 
were copied from transparent scenes indifferent mysteries. 
Since the late proprietor of this Vase permitted me to have 
this engraving made from it, the vessel has been by an acci- 
dent destroyed. 

* This representation differs much from the habit of the 
Demiurgus in the Egyptian mysteries, as noticed by Mr. 
Ouvaroff. At Eleusis too, the Hierophant, and the Sacred 
Herald, were only designated by their garment, hair, and 
fillet. But this must have been after they had ceased to 
personate characters in these dramas. 

M 



162 OBSERVATIONS. 

implies an anvil*. The second personage in 
this engraving is a female assistant, not indeed 
at the altar, but at the furnace of Hephaestus. 
The third in the attitude of a person proclaim 
ing or commanding, may represent Camillus ; 
or the Sacred Herald. The fourth is th( 
Aadov%o$ with his Torch across his knee 
These two last figures occur in more than one 
plate of D'Hancarville's Etruscan Vases, wher< 
their action is further shewn. 

These four figures seem designed for th< 
elementary principles alluded to by Varro 
Hephaestus, fire ; Isis, water ; Mercury, air 
and Pan, matter ; the vital part of which last 
the Sun, is denoted by his Torch, and we have 
already noticed that the Aadov^og, or Torch 
bearer, carried a symbol of the Sun. The 
torch is about to be ignited at the command o: 
Hermes t, the spiritual agent in the workshop 
of Creation. I apprehend it to be consisten 

* "Aycfj.cov — an Anvil, Heaven. — Hesych. 

•\ Hermes as a personification of Wind or Spirit, wa: 
considered by the Pagans as the winged messenger of heaven 
He was originally the same as the Orphic s§wg 9 and the 
winged Iacchus became his substitute at Eleusis. 



OBSERVATIONS. 163 

with the principles of the mysteries, that the 
primary Great Cause should not appear. His 
representatives the Elements are produced, and 
I have elsewhere attempted to shew*, that 
these were selected as fit symbols of the essence 
and the attributes of the Deity; and that they 
denoted his presence, his commands, his judge- 
ments, his mercies, and his promises, of all 
which the ancient world were not without some 
indistinct knowledge, preserved to them from 
patriarchal traditions. 

But these primary powers or Cabirs, were 
not always proper to Pelasgia alone. In after 
times, in the Erectheum in the Acropolis at 
Athens, were four altars, erected to Jupiter, 
Poseidon Erectheus, Butas, and Hephaestus ; 
where, though the order be transposed, yet the 
Demiurgic Hephaestus again appears, and a 
stranger, (fiovrag) Butas. In Egypt were also 
four primary Deities, Osiris, Isis, and Typhon ; 
denoting the creating, preserving, and de- 
stroying powers of the Deity, and a fourth 

* Essay on that earliest species of idolatry, the worship 
of the Elements, 1814. 

M 2 



1 64 OBSERVATIONS. 

named Horns, who agreed with Iacchus at 
least, in being represented of tender age. In 
India we find Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, as 
primary powers, figuring the creator, preserver* 
and destroyer, by the symbols earth, water, 
and fire; and a fourth, who now appears dis- 
carded from the mystic college, and has long 
been worshipped apart — the deity Boud, who 
has occasioned Asiatick antiquaries much pain- 
ful enquiry. This last I consider to be a per- 
sonification of spirit j and if the four be classed 
together, they present a very singular analogy 
to the deities and the hero reverenced in 
the Erectheum at Athens, and to the four 
agents in the Samothracian and Eleusinian mys- 
teries. 

If all these nations had severally their Ca- 
birs, their instructors in useful truths, we may 
believe that each acquired them by separate in- 
heritance. We need not wonder that the Pe- 
lasgic founders of the sacred rites in Samothrace 
enjoyed their portion even more pure than the 
early Egyptian mystics, who, with a further 
supply of traditions, imported many obscene 
rites, of which the Pelasgi may be supposed to 



OBSERVATIONS. 165 

have been ignorant*. Whether these Pelasgi 
were Scythians or a Celtic race, has been 



* What is here asserted, respecting the purer rites of the 
Pelasgi, is apparently contrary to the report of Herodotus, 
and requires explanation. The setting up of unhewn stones in 
Greece for religious memorials was a Pelasgic custom ; but, 
as these were rough and unsculptured, the obscene addi- 
tions to them must have been erroneously ascribed to the 
Pelasgi by Herodotus. Pausanias assures us, that the 
forming these stones into representations of Hermes, the 
lower parts being quadrangular, was an original device of 
the Athenians, Att. p. 56, and Messen. p. 36], Ed. KuhniL 
The additions above alluded to, were necessarily subsequent 
to the introduction of sculpture, and of indecent processions 
by the Egyptian Melampus. If, as the same historian ob- 
serves, the Initiators in Samothrace, in his time, explained 
to their Epoptce the meaning of the Phallic Termini, then 
common in Greece, yet how many additions might not the 
Cabiric mysteries have experienced between the times when 
Cadmus and Herodotus were initiated? Diodorus Siculus 
furnishes a credible tradition respecting the first use of 
Termini in Samothrace. It is this *. " At the time of the 

* Tou? 8e 7r£giXe«^0evT«fj TrpfxnxvaSpa/jLuv *\g rovg v^nKoTepovg rrjg vfiaov 
ToVoup. rrjg Be Stxhtxtr try g avaGouv over rig «et /axAXov, etii-aaQtxt rotg ®eo7g rod? 
iyywgfovg, xx) §i<xcrwQevTc*g xw'hy 7tsp\ oX^v T//V vijffov opovg Seo-Qou Trig crwrripfag, 
x«j fiufxoug idpuatxs-Qoii, efi ouy /*%>* to5 vuv Stf«v. Vol. i. lib. 5. p. 369. Ed. 
Wesseling. 



166 OBSERVATIONS. 

matter of dispute. Some of their institutions 
in Greece seem to have been derived from 
Colchis on the Euxine. But Wise has traced 
the Cabirs through the north of Asia Minor, 
to Bactria. Strabo gave credit to an asser- 

deluge, occasioned by the waters forcing their way from the 
Euxine through the Cyanean rocks and the Hellespont, the 
low grounds of Samothrace were inundated, by which many 
persons were destroyed. Those of the natives who survived 
betook themselves in haste to the higher places of the 
island. But the sea ever gaining upon them, they prayed 
to the gods, and being saved by them, they set up stones in 
a circle (or round) about the island, to mark the limits 
within which they they had found safety, and built altars, 
on which they even now sacrifice. ,, Whoever may be cu- 
rious in Celtic antiquities, and be disposed to attach im- 
portance to the report of Strabo from Artemidorus alluded 
to above, may consider, whether the Druidical circles of 
stones in our island may not have been devised to imitate 
this act of commemoration by the Pelasgi. The Samothra- 
cian deluge was, perhaps, nothing more than a local tradition 
of a much more general and important catastrophe. But 
the setting up of boundary stones may be still more reason- 
ably referred to the first establishment of the sons of Noah, 
soon after the deluge (those at least who partook not in the 
faction at Babel), when the Almighty set out the bounds of 
their habitations. 



OBSERVATIONS. 167 

tion of Artemidorus, that similar mysteries to 
those of Samothrace were celebrated in an island 
near Britain, which has been supposed to be 
Anglesea. 

These circumstances give some colour to a 
supposition, that they might have been a Go- 
merian race. The very name of Gomer* im- 
plies profoundly learned ; and his learning, we 
may be very sure, consisted in a knowledge of 
the pure Patriarchal worship, and of the tradi- 
tions and expectations of the Noachidae. 

Before I dismiss the subject of the antiquity 
of the mysteries, Mr. OuvarorPs reference to 
our Indian antiquaries must not be overlooked. 
Like many others, Mr. OuvarofT has been daz- 
zled by the discovery of Mr. Wilford, that 
certain Sanscrit words were used in the mys- 
teries. The admission however of foreign 
terms does not necessarily imply the adoption 
of foreign rites ; and, from a note in Davies's 
edition of the Tusculan Disputations of Cicero 
(lib. i. p. 53) it appears, that a superstitious re- 
spect was anciently paid to words adopted 

* *P».3 Chald. consomme, tres-s$avant; — Houbigant. 



168 OBSERVATIONS. 

from foreign languages, by which probably the 
Oriental are implied. Hence these lines of 
the pseudo-Zoroaster, quoted by the learned 
critick — 

'E<rr) y&g ov6y,otrcx, iea,§ ktiOLcrrois SeooSotol, 
Avvafuv ev rsXsTals dLpprpov l^ovta." 

" Change not foreign names, for every foreign nation has 
some peculiar to it, imparted by the Deity, and these are of 
unspeakable efficacy in Initiatory rites." 

Hence the words Konx — om — pax might 
have been introduced into the mysteries from 
their being supposed . to possess some secret 
virtue, even though the Initiators had not a 
precise knowledge of their meaning. — It is 
far from improbable, that these words may 
hereafter be found to be of Sclavonian original, 
since that language is said to be very closely 
allied to the Sanscrit. 



OBSERVATIONS. 169 



Whether the Dii majorum Gentium were deified 

Men. 

An opinion of Mr. OuvarofPs illustrious 
predecessor in these enquiries, Bishop Warbur- 
ton, on a doctrine supposed to have been en- 
forced in the mysteries, forms the subject of 
Section V. in the foregoing Essay. But be- 
fore I proceed to consider this point, I must 
beg leave to differ from Mr. Ouvaroff on an- 
other. He observes, that the supposition of 
the Heathen gods having been merely deified 
mortals, chiefly rests on the meaning that may 
be attached to a word in Herodotus, who stated 
that the Persians neither allowed the erecting 
statues, temples, nor altars, as it appeared to 
him, because they did not (as the Greeks) be- 
lieve the gods to be a,v0gairo$viug 9 of human 
origin. Mr. Ouvaroff rejects this sense of the 
word a,v0goMro(pvtuSi and adopts our countryman 
Stanley's interpretation humand forma prceditos. 
But the true meaning of the word is, partaking 
of human natures, which evidences the absur- 



170 OBSERVATIONS. 

dity alleged by the Persians, as including the 
notion of form represented by statues, and of 
dwelling in temples made with hands : and this 
sense of the word is maintained by Bishop 
Warburton in an excellent note in his Div. 
Leg. vol. i. p. 150-1. 

That all the Dii mqjorum Gentium were 
declared in the mysteries to have been deified 
mortals, can scarcely be credited. What has 
been adduced to this effect from Cicero by 
Warburton (two particular passages excepted) 
from the declaration of Scaevola, as reported by 
Augustine, and from Plutarch, relate only to 
heroes, such as Hercules, Bacchus, iEscula- 
pius, Castor and Pollux, or to Daemons. The 
authorities that really countenance the opinion 
are these : a passage from Cicero de Naturd 
Deorum, another from the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions, and a third from Augustine. This last, 
however, is not so important. It is the story 
of Alexander's communicating to his mother 
by letter the information he had collected from 
an Egyptian Hierophant, that the Dii mqjorum 
Gentium had also been only men : but, allowing 



OBSERVATIONS. 171 

this story to be true, it may have been no more 
than a very keen satire ; and if we accept it in 
too literal a sense, the fine point of it is lost. 

If the great gods of Egypt were merely 
parts of the universe, (and there may be reason 
to suspect they were so considered,) the Egyp- 
tian Hierophant might have withheld this in- 
formation from Alexander; he would not scruple 
however to own that the heroes had been dei- 
fied men. But when he proceeded a step fur- 
ther, to acquaint him that all the great gods (of 
the chief of whom Olympias had persuaded her 
son he was the offspring) were originally mere 
mortals, this was a home stroke artfully levelled 
at the great conqueror's pride ; and it was only 
upon Alexander's proposing to report this to 
his mother, that the priest betrayed alarm, ex- 
pecting to feel the weight of his displeasure. 

There remain, then, to be considered the two 
passages of Cicero. In one of these, in the 
Tusculan Disputations, lib. i. c. 13. (p. 26, ed. 
Davisii) — " What," says he, " is not almost 
all heaven, not to carry on this detail further, 
filled with the human race ? But if I should 
search and examine antiquity, and bring for- 



172 OBSERVATIONS. 

ward from it those things which the Grecian 
writers have delivered, it would be found that 
even those very gods themselves who are 
deemed the Dii mqjorum Gentium, had their 
original here below, and ascended from hence 
into heaven. Enquire to whom those sepul- 
chres belong, which are so commonly shewn 
in Greece, — remember, for you are initiated, 
what you have been taught in the mysteries ; 
you will at length understand, how far this 
matter can be carried *." 

In this, which is the strongest authority, the 
Grecian writers and local traditions are ad- 
duced, both of which favor the opinion that the 
greater gods were deified mortals. But this 
opinion we shall find corrected in his Treatise 
de Naturd Deorum, and there stigmatised by 
him as highly irreligious. But the matter, he 
adds, may be carried still further, for you 
know what doctrines are revealed in the mys- 
teries. He does not proceed to declare what 
was precisely taught in them, but we may con- 

* This is nearly Bishop Warburton's translation of the 
passage, vol. i. Div. Leg. p. 213. 



OBSERVATIONS. 173 

elude they went still further than the Grecian 
writers and local traditions ; and it must be 
remembered that the argument here respects 
not the nature of the gods, but the immortality 
of the soul, w r hich the person whom Cicero ad- 
dresses professed to disbelieve. 

Indeed it is most surprising (if it were not 
from an oversight,) that Cicero should thus 
accost his auditor — " Meminiscere, quoniam es 
Znitiatus, quae traduntur Mysteriis" — when the 
latter denied a point of doctrine, which of all 
others we may be sure was taught in the mys- 
teries. To such a disputant Cicero, no doubt, 
preferred adopting the most popular arguments, 
and the system of Euhemerus, with regard 
even to the greater gods, answered very well 
this end. But he treats the matter much more 
seriously in his Tract de Nat. Deor. 1. i. c. 42. 
There he complains, that those who would as- 
sert that religion had been invented for poli- 
tical purposes, subverted it from its very 
foundation : that Prodicus the Cean, who 
deified things beneficial to man, had left not a 
vestige of religion. Were not those devoid of 
it, he adds, who deified the dead? As Euhe- 



174 OBSERVATIONS. 

merus; for Euhemerus proved their deaths and 
burials. Did he establish religion by this, or 
did he not rather annul it altogether ? He for- 
bears to speak of Eleusis. He passes by Samo- 
thrace (where perhaps a different account of 
these things was given), and the mysteries of 
Lemnos, in which mysteries, when explained, 
and brought back to their true meaning, it is 
found that not so much the nature of the gods 
is taught in them, as the nature of things, where 
the words " quibus explicatis" are immediately 
connected with " eaque quce Lemni*. From 
this supposition then of Bishop Warburton, the 
mysteries of Lemnos undoubtedly, and proba- 
bly both those of Samothrace and Eleusis, stand 
clear. 

We may believe therefore with Cicero in the 
passage last adduced, and with the learned 
Varro, that the great gods, when explained, 
were no more than the elements or parts of the 
universe. Even these authorities then, how- 



* As I apprehend, they were rightly interpreted by the 
Abbe Pluches, although his translation was not approved 
by Bishop Warburton. 



OBSERVATIONS. 175 

ever apparently or partially favorable to Bishop 
Warburton's supposition, may not be sufficiently 
conclusive ; and the opinion of Mr. Ouvaroff 
may be well founded, that the doctrine of the 
Apotheosis, as referring to the greater gods, 
was not set forth in the mysteries, although he 
seems not to have rested his opinion to that 
effect on the strongest arguments that might 
have been selected. 



On the Doctrine of the Mysteries. 

Bishop Warburton has concluded, that the 
Unity of the Godhead and the doctrine of a 
Providence were taught in the mysteries. If 
polytheism was explained away, I would fain 
believe, that the first great truth was taught in 
lieu of it. But that providence which consists 
in God's holy, wise, and powerful support and 
management of his creatures, is not implied in 
any quotation that I remember to be adduced 
by Warburton, much less in the scheme set 
forth, and supported by many authorities, in 



116 OBSERVATIONS. 

the dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic 
mysteries of Mr. Taylor, with which Mr. 
Ouvaroff is apparently unacquainted. The 
Essay of Mr. Taylor is curious, as it shews how 
firmly a belief in the consequences of the Fall, 
the deterioration of man's nature, was im- 
pressed on the minds of the contemplative part 
of the ancient world, and what wild specula- 
tions resulted from engrafting on this belief, 
the notion of a Metempsychosis. But whether 
we must term this scheme comparatively late, 
and not less than 790 years after the foundation 
of the mysteries at Eleusis by Eumolpus, since 
the doctrine of the Metempsychosis is said to 
have been unknown in Greece before the time 
of Pherecydes (who was the master of Pytha- 
goras) about 560 years A. C. ; or whether the 
Metempsychosis was that particular secret, 
which Orpheus brought from Egypt, when the 
mysteries were improved by him, I leave for 
others to determine. It is fair however to 
state, that even this view of the mysteries had 
been in part anticipated by Warburton ; but, 
like many other valuable, and well authenti- 



OBSERVATIONS. 177 

cated points, it was thrown by him into 
shadow, that his legislative system might ap- 
pear more prominent. He had noticed from 
Plato, that the end and design of initiation was, 
to restore the soul to that state from whence it 
fell, as from its native seat of perfection. Vol. 
I. p. 195. This is completely in unison with 
the suggestions of Mr. Ouvaroff, so very philo- 
sophically and beautifully expressed in his 
Third Section, where he apprehends that man's 
relation to the Deity, the original dignity of 
his nature, his fall, and the (supposed) mean 
of his return to God, preserved from ancient 
traditions, composed the doctrines of the knop- 
prira. 

By Mr. OuvarofPs method of resolving 
polytheism into its first principles, many fables 
in the popular religion of Greece will derive a 
satisfactory elucidation. The descent of Pro- 
serpine, who, instead of gathering fruit in Eden, 
was hurried to the Inferi when culling flowers 
in Enna ; the wanderings of Ceres, and the 
partial recovery of her daughter, probably ef- 
fected at Eleusis through the spiritual lacchus, 
the parallel story of Eurydice wounded in the 

N 



178 OBSERVATIONS. 

ankle * by a serpent, (applying still more closely 
to the fate of our first parent,) and her resto- 
ration by Orpheus, a reputed founder of the 
mysteries, and the relapse of nature thus im- 
perfectly restored, with other fables that might 
be cited, all become intelligible from Mr. Ouva- 
rofFs hypothesis. 



On the Eleusinian lacchus. 

In the last section of his Essay, the author 
agitates a question, to which he may be thought 
to have attached unnecessary importance; 
whether the rites of Bacchus and Ceres were 
not ultimately blended, and which Bacchus, of 
the many celebrated by poets, was the lacchus 
of the Eleusinian mysteries. No doubt, the 
mysteries of Eleusis were enlarged and im- 
proved by the addition of every species of 
foreign fable, that could give variety and in- 
terest to the shows, and many strange person- 
ages, real or fictitious, would in time be ad- 

* " Occidit, in talum serpentis dente recepto." 

Ovid. Metam. 1. 10. v. 10. 



OBSERVATIONS. 179 

initted. Such may have been lacchus, of whose 
origin so little is known. Of the three deities 
named Bacchus, Mr. Ouvaroff observes, the 
first is oriental or Egyptian, the second a pure 
Hellenist ; but he is altogether at a loss to ac- 
count for the third. He adds, that a consi- 
derable part of ancient mythology rests upon 
unknown portions of history. It represents 
isolated facts that are lost in the night of time. 
But if antiquaries will resort to Egypt for the 
primary ideas of Greek mythology, let the 
following be taken as a specimen of the his- 
tories they bring away with them ; nor must 
they object, if we suggest the possibility of 
another true history, in a country adjoining to 
Egypt, having been made to furnish a religious 
allegory for the dramas at Eleusis. 

Mr. Wise has observed, that Bacchus was 
twice born, (which Diodorus refers to the 
fruits of the earth being destroyed in the flood 
of Deucalion, and springing up after it,) that 
he planted the vine, made wine, and was over- 
taken by the power of it ; where we have evi- 
dent traces of the patriarch Noah. Again, he 
has noticed, after Vossius, that Bacchus was 

n 2 



1 80 OBSERVATIONS. 

born in Egypt, that he had two mothers, was 
exposed upon the waters in an ark or chest, 
was pictured horned, and was called the legis- 
lator ; that he passed through the Red Sea, and 
that one of the Bacchae of Euripides, by strik- 
ing a rock with her Thyrsus, brought out water ; 
in which some leading transactions in the life 
of Moses are clearly alluded to. — Again he 
observes, that Bacchus was termed Nebrodes, 
and Zctygevg, Nimrod the mighty hunter. 
{Hist, and Chron. of the fabulous Ages, p. 82. 
3. 4.) With all these traditions and titles 
Iacchus had no concern ; but we recognize in 
them a course of ancient history, and a col- 
lection of traditions borrowed from the Jewish 
Scriptures. Let the following be added, as a 
possible foundation for the story of Iacchus*. 

* There is a very pleasing group of Ceres and Proser- 
pine, with a figure of the young winged Iacchus alighting 
near the shoulder of the latter, in the library of Christ- 
church, Oxford. This interesting piece of antique sculp- 
ture, was brought from Pella, in Macedonia, in the year 
1806, by the late Alexander Mackenzie, Esq. then a student 
of Christ-church, a learned young man of great worth and 
promise. He died soon after presenting the marble to his 
college. 



OBSERVATIONS. 181 

Ceres, after she had quitted heaven, griev- 
ing for the loss of her daughter, accompanied 
by her young son Iacchus, sat down upon the 
stone of sorrow near the well Callichorus, 
where her thirst was allayed. I will omit the 
absurdity and indecency with which the fable 
is further disfigured*, and enquire how this 
could be applied at Eleusis, to illustrate the 
noble doctrines which Mr. OuvarorT, with much 
probability, has concluded were taught there. 

* And for which Iamblichus has furnished a very sen- 
sual apology. But the following extract from the Prae- 
lectio of the worthy Dr. Cook, prefixed to his edition of 
Aristotle, de Poetica, will shew the true cause of the intro- 
duction of them. 

" Atqui his sordibus atque immunditatibus inerat reli- 
gio — manca ilia quidem ac depravata, ut ex pura castaque 
quae fuerat virgine, ad impudicitiam omnemque turpitudinem 
abjecta. Hsec autem fceda et probrosa facinora, lusus, las- 
civiaeque, et promiscui marium cum fceminis congressus, 
quid aliud spectant, aut ad quam originem repeti atque ar- 
cessi possunt, nisi ad notam illam ac praeclaram itotkiy- 
ysvEcriavt expectatam videlicet per tot saecula totius generis 
humani instaurationem, cujus instaurator atque perfector 
ipse homo factus futurus esset Deus." P. xxi. 



182 OBSERVATIONS. 

The story may perhaps be traced to Gerara or 
Idumsea, and therefore the Egyptians must 
have been aware of it. It occurs in the 
wanderings of the outcast Hagar with her son 
Ishmael ; who, when exhausted with fatigue 
and thirst, was comforted by an angel, who 
shewed her, not indeed the well Callichorus, 
but a spring of living water, vtiurog £avro$ 9 as it 
is perhaps significantly expressed by the Sep- 
tuagint: (Gen. c. xxi. v. 19.) evidently as an 
assurance to Ishmael, that however, as the son 
of the bondwoman, he was not chosen for the 
line of succession, he was by no means ex- 
cluded from partaking of that well of life, 
which was to spring up in God's appointed 
time # . 



* It is worthy of remark, that a temporal encourage- 
ment was added, Gen. c. xxi. v, 18, that Ishmael should be 
a great people ; and Gen. c. xxv. v. 16, his children are 
designated twelve princes, the same in number as the heads 
of the favoured tribes. 



OBSERVATIONS. 18; 



On the "words rihtrq and r'sXetog. 

Mr. OuvarofF has suggested, that one of 
the great objects of the mysteries was, the pre- 
senting to fallen man the means of his return 
to God. These means were the cathartic 
virtues # , by the exercise of which a corporeal 
life was to be vanquished. Accordingly the 
mysteries were termed rsAsra), perfections, be- 
cause they were supposed to induce a perfect- 
ness of life. Those who were purified by them 
were styled riXovptvoi and rersXscr^svoi, that is, 
brought slg fo riXeiov, to perfection ; which 
depended on the exertions of the individual. 
In an attempt that I formerly made to eluci- 
date the nature of the Eleusinian shows, I 
ventured to conclude, that the doctrines of 
them were explained by means of transparent 
scenes^, and that these had been faithfully 

* Dissertation of Mr. Taylor. 

f Somewhat like the dramatic representations in the 
island of Java, consisting of " scenic shadows, in which the 



184 OBSERVATIONS. 

copied upon the painted Greek vases; which 
were accordingly deposited in tombs, to evi- 
dence the faith of the deceased. It gave me 
occasion to notice from Plutarch, that the vo- 
taries of Isis professed to think of the deity, 
as of their sacred veils ; that his nature was 
partly dark and partly light and brilliant, in 
other words, that it could only be imperfectly 
comprehended. In a very remarkable passage 
in the Epistle of St. James, it is said, that God 
is the Father of Lights, and that in him is 
neither variableness nor shadow of turning : 
where the words lights and shadow seem to 
allude to those heathen means of religious 
improvement. But the words of the apostle 
appear directed to the doctrines, as well as to 

several heroes of the drama, represented in diminutive size, 
are made to perform their entrances and exits behind a 
transparent curtain." The subjects of these, it is said, are 
taken from the ancient religious poems, the B'rata Yud'ha, 
or Holy War, and the Romo or Rama. 

See a discourse delivered to the Literary and Scientific 
Society at Java, Sept. 10, 1815, by the Hon. T. S. Raffles, 
president, published in Valpy's Pamphleteer, No. 15. 



OBSERVATIONS. 1 85 

the mysterious shows of the Pagans. For, as 
in them, perfection was to be obtained by the 
efforts of the individual exercising himself in 
the cathartic virtues ; the inspired teacher 
shews, that such advancement was only really 
attainable by the gift of God. 

" IIa<ra 86<ri$ dyaQy, na) irocv Sajpypa. te\siov ocvouQsv strfi, 
xafagcuvov dito tov ntatfQQs tuv (poofouv, ita§ cu ovk svi ##$>- 
aKXay^, ^ T^oit^g ditoa-yiloca-^a,. 99 c. i. v. 17. 

" Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, 
and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is 
no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 

Where rshuov 9 perfect, is the very word used 
by the Pagans to express the object of their 
mysteries. Hence I would infer, that iotrig 
wyu$hi good gift, must denote temporal bless- 
ings, and dcogripcx, ri"kziov, spiritual graces*; and 
with these I should presume to accept the 

* See Locke on 1 Cor. c. ii. v. 6. h Tot; fsteloif, amongst 
them that are perfect. " Perfect,'' says Locke, " here is the 

same with spiritual." The words sv ?o7$ rsXeiois h 

fjt,v<ri'y}§lu) — rr t v diroKsx.§u^evrjv used, by St. Paul, seem all 
to be applied to the initiated Pagans. 

o 



186 OBSERVATIONS. 

word (poorav, lights, in a much more exalted 
sense than Schleussner in his Lexicon has as- 
signed to the word, with reference to this 
passage. 

The books of the Old and the New Covenant 
best interpret each other: accordingly, this 
passage of St. James elucidates the nature of 
the Urim and Thummim, in the prophetical 
breast-plate of the Jewish high priest, (in 
Levit.), which Dean Prideaux properly de- 
termined to be the divine power given to the 
breast-plate in its consecration ; " for Urim 
signifieth light, and Thummim perfection*." 
Thus, when the Almighty directed in what 
manner the vestments of the high priest should 
be made, he commanded Moses to place in 
the breast-plate the Urim and Thummim, 
Exod. c. xxviii. v. 30.: when the workmen how- 
ever executed their work, no mention of these 
occurs; Exod. c. xxxix. v. 21., for they were 
not to be inserted by human hands. But when 
Moses consecrates Aaron and invests him, he 
adds the Urim and Thummim, by virtue of 

* Connection, vol. i. p. 215. 



OBSERVATIONS. 187 

his commission from the Almighty. Levit. 
c. viii. v. 8. 

These Urim and Thummim, then, were 
spiritual gifts imparted from the Father of 
lights. They implied, that whenever the high 
priest fastened on the sacred breast-plate, he 
was spiritually and divinely illuminated, and 
permitted to look into futurity, as far as re- 
garded the immediate purpose of enquiry into 
the Divine Will. To this I will lastly add, 
that the Urim and Thummim of Christians is 
the Gospel. And I cannot better conclude 
my remarks on the subject of Mr. OuvarofFs 
speculations, than by illustrating what I have 
recently adduced, in the words of the excellent 
Stanhope : — 

" The great ends which God seems to have intended 
the doctrine of his Gospel should serve, are the enlightening 
our minds, and purifying our natures ; letting us into a 
nearer view of a future state, and the incommunicable 
perfections of the Divine Nature; and bringing us to a 
better likeness of those that are communicable." 

and again : — 

" The exalting^ I mean, and purifying our nature, and 

o 2 



£Z%J>&4^A 



188 OBSERVATIONS. 

so rendering us more like God, in those of his perfections 
which may and ought to be imitated by us *.*' 

* Paraphrase and Comment on the Epistles and Gospels, 
Vol. l. p. 181. 



J. CHRISTIE. 



THE END, 



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